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THE STANS
US aims to eliminate IS from Afghanistan this year
By Thomas WATKINS
Washington (AFP) May 2, 2017


IS attack in western Iraq kills 10 soldiers: officers
Habbaniyah, Iraq (AFP) May 2, 2017 - Jihadist fighters killed at least 10 soldiers in the western Iraqi province of Anbar on Tuesday in their latest deadly attack on security forces in the area, officers said.

The latest attack near the remote outpost of Rutba brought to at least 26 the number of members of the Iraqi security forces killed by the Islamic State group in the area in recent days.

"We had 10 soldiers killed and six wounded in an attack by Daesh early this morning," an army lieutenant colonel told AFP, using an Arabic acronym for IS.

A police officer and a local official confirmed the attack and casualty toll.

The army officer said IS attacked a 1st Division base in the Saggar area, east of Rutba, using mortar rounds and rockets before fighters armed with rifles tried to storm it.

He said the ensuing clashes lasted two hours until 7:00 am (0400 GMT).

Rutba lies about 390 kilometres (240 miles) west of Baghdad in the vast province of Anbar and is the last sizeable town before the border with Jordan.

Anbar is a sprawling desert province traversed by the Euphrates River and borders Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

It has long been an insurgent stronghold, and IS already controlled parts of it when it swept through Iraq in 2014 to take over around a third of the country.

Pro-government forces have since retaken most towns and cities in Anbar, but the jihadists still control some areas near the Syrian border and have desert hideouts from which they harass federal forces.

According to figures provided to AFP by several Anbar officials, at least 26 Iraqi personnel -- including members of the border guard, the army and the police -- have been killed in the area since April 23.

After dropping a monster bomb on its fighters, then targeting its leader, the US military is looking to destroy the Islamic State group's Afghan branch before battle-hardened reinforcements arrive from Syria and Iraq.

While US and Kabul government forces have mainly been combatting Taliban fighters since 2001, IS's local offshoot -- also known as Islamic State-Khorasan, or ISIS-K -- has a stronghold in eastern Afghanistan.

First emerging in 2015, ISIS-K overran large parts of Nangarhar and Kunar provinces, near the Pakistan border, but their part in the Afghan conflict had been largely overshadowed by the operations against the Taliban.

Many Americans first heard of ISIS-K last month when the US dropped the "Mother Of All Bombs" on its Nangarhar bastion -- an aerial munition that the Pentagon said was the biggest non-nuclear weapon it had ever used in combat.

US and Afghan forces then raided a compound last week close to the site of the bombing, with the Pentagon saying it believed it had killed ISIS-K's leader Abdul Hasib during the operation.

Captain Bill Salvin, spokesman for US Forces-Afghanistan, said the local IS presence peaked at between 2,500 to 3,000 but that defections and recent battlefield losses had reduced their number to a maximum of 800.

"We have a very good chance of destroying them in 2017, making it very clear that when the ISIS fighters are destroyed elsewhere around the globe that this is not the place for you to come to plot your attacks," Salvin told AFP.

US-backed fighters also appear to have IS on the ropes in Syria and Iraq, where an operation to wrest back control of the major northern city of Mosul has been ongoing since October.

- Jihadists on the move -

But both the military and analysts acknowledge there is a danger of IS fighters heading to Afghanistan if they are forced out of Iraq and Syria.

Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution, said that while IS should ultimately be defeated in Afghanistan, the Pentagon's timeline may be overly optimistic.

A definitive victory could take "a long time due, partly (due) to the proximity of Pakistan as well as the possible flow of fighters" from the Middle East as the "group loses sanctuaries there," O'Hanlon told AFP.

The Taliban, which first emerged in the mid-1990s in southern Afghanistan, managed to conquer most of the country before its 2001 ouster with the help of a range of foreign jihadists, including Pakistanis, Saudis and Chechens.

Analysts say that as well as Afghans, ISIS-K includes disaffected Pakistani and Uzbek Islamists among its ranks who used to fight for the Taliban.

It first emerged as a significant player in Afghanistan in early 2015 when its fighters overran the Taliban in parts of the east and has subsequently claimed responsibility for a string of bomb attacks.

ISIS-K's defeat would be an important victory for the US, which has struggled to boast of clear wins after forcing the Taliban out of Kabul in 2001 in the initial aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Bill Roggio, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and editor of the Long War Journal, said ISIS-K had "withstood multiple US-backed offensives over the past two years."

But while their defeat would be a boost to the US, Roggio said the Taliban and their long-time Al-Qaeda allies were still a much bigger challenge.

"It's not that they don't pose a threat, but I would argue that the Taliban pose a far greater threat to the stability of Afghanistan," Roggio told AFP.

"It would be basically winning a battle, but we are still losing the war, which is basically the story of Afghanistan since we've been involved there."

America has about 8,400 troops in Afghanistan. Most belong to a NATO mission to train and advise Afghan partner forces fighting the Taliban.

THE STANS
IS Afghanistan leader likely killed: Pentagon
Washington (AFP) April 28, 2017
US and Afghan troops likely killed the leader of the Islamic State group's Afghanistan affiliate in a raid this week, the Pentagon said Friday. US officials also said they have opened a probe into whether two US Army Rangers killed in the assault had been struck by friendly fire. The raid, which occurred overnight Wednesday-Thursday in Nangarhar province, targeted Abdul Hasib, whom the P ... read more

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