Members of international terrorist organizations, including citizens of Central Asian countries, have also taken part in recent fighting in the Balkhab district of Saripul province.
MAZARI-SHARIF, June 27 - Sangar, Qari Ahmad. In the past, there have been numerous reports of the presence of terrorist organizations in northern Afghanistan.
IN THE PHOTO: Badakhshan militants of Qari Fasihuddin. They have sandals at their feet. No wonder a Hazara resistance fighter said in one of the entries that the battlefield was full of sandals of fugitive Taliban.
Davood Naderi (the changed name), a close associate of Mawlavi Mahdi Mujahid, leader of the Balkhab resistance, told the Sangar website that suicide bombers and ISIS* fighters have also been killed in recent battles with the Taliban.
“In the battles on the outskirts of the village of Tarkhuj, the center of the Balkhab district, yesterday (June 25) our forces killed 11 suicide bombers, but one of them managed to get to our forces and blew himself up among them, as a result, 8 of our fighters died, three more were wounded,” Naderi said.
The source added that some of the foreign fighters came along with the Taliban army chief of staff, Qari Fasihuddin, who commanded their forces in the Balkhab War, and some came from al-Qaeda* and ISIS bases in the Kuhistanat (Saripul), Darzab, and Kushteppa (Faryab) districts.
“One of the detainees, who introduced himself as a Badakhshan Taliban and from the militants of Qari Fasihuddin, during interrogation confirmed the presence of foreign terrorists. He said that Qari Fasihuddin brought with him members of Jamaat Ansarullah* and ISIS who were in Badakhshan and Kunduz. The other part was from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan*, Kazakhs, Arabs, and Pakistanis. They came from Darzab and Qushteppa,” Naderi said.
The war between the Taliban and Mawlavi Mahdi Mujahid, a former Hazara commander of the group who left their ranks and declared resistance, began three days ago. Mawlavi Mahdi controlled the Balkhab region, which is his main base. The Taliban sent about 6,000 troops to Balkhab, including the Badri special forces, the Red Brigade, and the Laser Group, and yesterday (June 25) captured the center of the district, the village of Tarkhoj, but fighting around the center continues.
Dawood Nadiri says that Mawlavi Mahdi's forces number between 3 and 4 thousand soldiers and have lost 12 members in the fighting.
“Most of them are those who died as a result of a terrorist attack by a foreign suicide bomber, a member of ISIS. Now we are in a better position. We left the center of the area because Taliban airstrikes killed civilians. Their number is unknown,” Naderi said.
According to him, the Taliban lost a large number of their fighters in the Balkhab War, so much so that there was no place for their wounded in the hospitals of Saripul, and they were taken to hospitals in the provinces of Juzjan and Faryab.
“They took their dead by helicopter to Kabul and Mazar-i-Sharif. Most of the troops were transferred from neighboring provinces and Kabul,” Naderi said.
Taliban sources reported 14 deaths, including Mohammad Mujahid, former Balkhab police chief, 12 wounded, six resistance fighters taken detainees, and one Toyota Hilux and Humvee tank received from Mawlavi Mahdi resistance forces.
Meanwhile, Mohammad Mohaqqiq, leader of the Afghan Unity Party, said there were about 8,000 Taliban in Balkhab, including Badri's special forces and Mansouri's suicide squads. According to him, the Taliban managed to capture the center of Balkhab and 8 out of 128 villages in the region.
“In the villages of Takhshar and Tarkhuj, the Taliban killed three civilians named Sayed Azim Sharifi (75), Sayed Ali Agha, Sayed Vahidi, 2 shepherds, and 3 peasants in Khamkutal and Mohammad Moradi, a former mujahideen with two daughters and a niece,” said Mohaqqiq.
Meanwhile, Balkhab is the first front in the north of Afghanistan, which, together with Panjshir and Andarab, opposes the Taliban. According to the information provided by Sangar, there are also fighters belonging to the National Resistance Front of Ahmad Massoud, the Islamic Jamiat of Ustad Atomohammad Nur, the National Movement of Abdurshid Dostum, and other former commanders of the republic in the ranks of the Balkhab resistance.
*These organizations are under UN sanctions or banned due to terrorist activities.
