Afghan officials confirmed for the first time this week that the Islamic State (ISIS) is active in the southern part of the country. They say the organization is flying black flags and recruiting fighters,
the Associated Press reports.
There are even reports that ISIS fighters have squared off in battle against the Taliban.
Afghan sources said that a man identified as Mullah Abdul Rauf was actively recruiting fighters for the group, which controls large parts of Syria and Iraq.
"A number of tribal leaders, jihadi commanders and some ulema (religious council members) and other people have contacted me to tell me that Mullah Rauf had contacted them and invited them to join him," said Gen. Mahmood Khan, an Afghan Army official.
But Khan said the Taliban – which is active across southern Helmand province – have warned people not to contact Rauf. One tribal leader said there had been reports that "19 or 20 people have been killed" in recent combat between ISIS and the Taliban.
Rauf was a corps commander during the Taliban reign in Afghanistan which lasted from 1996 to 2001, said Amir Mohammad Akundzada, the governor of neighboring Nimroz province in southwestern Afghanistan.
Khan and Akundzada said Rauf was captured following the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and was transferred to the U.S.-run detention facility at Guantanamo Bay.
According to a U.S. military report released by WikiLeaks, Rauf claimed to be a low-level Taliban soldier.
But in reality, he "was in a position to have extensive knowledge of the opium trade in Afghanistan and could identify the individuals in the criminal organizations that were working with both the Taliban and the Northern Alliance in the opium trade," the U.S. military document on him said.
It nonetheless recommended that Rauf be “transferred to the control of another country for continued detention,”
The Washington Post reports.
He was released to the Afghan government's control in 2007 and eventually became a Taliban "shadow governor" in southern Afghanistan. Rauf later switched terror groups and pledged allegiance to ISIS.
Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani warned President Barack Obama that the U.S. troop withdrawal would leave a void ISIS would try to fill,
the Daily Caller notes. But those warnings were ignored, with some officials claiming until last week that ISIS would not come to Afghanistan.
"This is not Iraq. I don’t see [Islamic State] coming into Afghanistan like they did into Iraq," the International Security Assistance Force commander, Gen. John Campbell, said last week.
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