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Washington Post: Foreign fighters are spilling into Afghanistan, helping the Taliban
KABUL — Hundreds of foreign militants are fleeing a months-long Pakistani military offensive and seeking sanctuary in Afghanistan, bolstering the ranks of Taliban factions and triggering one of the bloodiest starts to the spring fighting season in years, according to Afghan officials and analysts.
The growing influence of the foreign fighters, officials said, was evident over the weekend in the northeastern province of Badakhshan, where a few hundred Taliban fighters overran Afghan army posts, killing 18 soldiers and wounding 10. Eight of the soldiers were beheaded — a first by the Taliban in this region — before the insurgents vanished into the mountains with seized weapons.
“The foreign Taliban fighters beheaded the soldiers, not the local Taliban,” said Ahmad Nawid Froutan, a spokesman for the provincial governor. “In the past, the local Taliban have never committed such brutality.”
Update: Afghan military prepares for major counterinsurgency operation in north -- Stars and Stripes
WNU Editor: Good and bad news here.Tthe good news is that these fighters are losing their safe sanctuaries in Pakistan .... the bad news is that the Afghan army is not ready to confront and defeat them.
1 comment:
You'll notice in the above graphic, all the arrows from countries of origin end in Syria and Lebanon, but there is no arrow from Iran to these countries.
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