ISIS affiliate present in all 34 Afghan provinces, says UN envoy

WASHINGTON • The UN envoy to Afghanistan has delivered a bleak assessment of the situation following the Taliban takeover, saying that an affiliate of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group has grown and now appears present in nearly all 34 provinces.

UN Special Representative Deborah Lyons told the Security Council the Taliban's response to the expansion of the Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISKP) "appears to rely heavily on extrajudicial detentions and killings" of suspected ISKP fighters.

"This is an area deserving more attention from the international community," she said.

Her comments on Wednesday came hours after ISKP - an ideological foe of the Taliban - claimed responsibility for two blasts that killed at least two people and injured five others in a heavily Shi'ite Muslim neighbourhood of Kabul.

The Taliban, she said, has been unable to stem ISKP's growth.

"Once limited to a few provinces and the capital Kabul, ISKP now seems to be present in nearly all provinces, and increasingly active," Ms Lyons said, adding that the number of the group's attacks have risen from 60 strikes last year to 334 so far this year.

While the Taliban is making "genuine efforts to present itself as a government" since seizing Kabul in August after a 20-year war with the United States, it continues to exclude representatives of other sectors of society and still curtails the rights of women and girls.

The UN mission regularly receives credible reports of house searches and the "extrajudicial killings" of former security personnel and officials, she said.

Ms Lyons warned anew of a humanitarian catastrophe as winter looms due to a failing economy and drought. She implored the international community to find ways to fund the salaries of healthcare workers, teachers and humanitarian workers, saying humanitarian aid is insufficient.

The economic collapse will fuel illicit drug, arms and human trafficking and unregulated money exchanges that "can only help facilitate terrorism", Ms Lyons said.

"These pathologies will first affect Afghanistan," she said. "Then they will infect the region."

Meanwhile, at least two people were killed and five wounded in a bomb blast that hit a minibus in the Afghan capital on Wednesday, officials said.

The blast destroyed the vehicle in Dasht-e-Barchi, a Taliban official told AFP, in a suburb dominated by minority Hazara Shi'ites.

"Our initial information shows the bomb was attached to a minibus. We have launched an investigation," he said.

Different Taliban officials gave varying accounts of the casualties.

An AFP employee was near the scene when the bomb detonated. "I heard a huge explosion... when I looked around a minibus and a taxi were on fire," he said.

"I also saw ambulances rush to the area to take wounded and dead people to the hospital."

ISKP, also known as Islamic State-Khorasan, claimed responsibility, saying on its Telegram channel that two separate explosions "killed and wounded more than 20 apostates". ISIS uses the term to refer to Shi'ites.

Last week, a journalist was killed and at least four other people were injured when a bomb destroyed another minibus in the same area, in an attack also claimed by ISKP.

The extremists have stepped up operations since the Taliban's return to power in August, and earlier this month raided the city's National Military Hospital, killing at least 19 people and injuring more than 50 others.

The group has also claimed responsibility for several attacks in the city of Jalalabad, the capital of eastern Nangarhar province and a hotbed of ISKP activity.

REUTERS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE