Nangarhar:Islamic State beheads 15 of its own fighters, suicide attack rocks Jalalabad

Islamic State beheaded 15 of its own fighters due to infighting in Afghanistan’s eastern province of Nangarhar, officials said, while a separate suicide attack on Thursday tore into a crowd in the provincial capital, Jalalabad, killing at least eight.

The two incidents underline the insecurity and lawlessness across Afghanistan, where thousands of civilians have been killed or wounded this year amid unrelenting violence involving militant groups including Islamic State and the Taliban. In a bloody day for the province, a suicide bomber blew himself up, killing at least eight people at a meeting of supporters of a police commander who was sacked for illegal land grabbing.

There was no claim of responsibility and no immediate indication of who was behind the attack on the crowd in Jalalabad, which had gathered to demand the reinstatement of the commander, who survived the attack.
A spokesman for the Jalalabad hospital confirmed eight people had been killed and 15 wounded. Nangarhar, on the porous border with Pakistan, has become a stronghold for Islamic State, generally known as Daesh in Afghanistan, which has grown to become one of the country’s most dangerous militant groups since it appeared around the start of 2015.

Attaullah Khogyani, the provincial governor’s spokesman, said …read more