...mindless ferocity in a turban...have deployed small drones to drop bombs on government forces in some recent attacks, Afghanistan's spy chief said Monday, illustrating a new fighting method used by the hard boys.
Ahmad Zia Shiraj, who heads the National Directorate of Security
...the Afghan national intel agency...
(NDS), said Taliban fighters were using hobby drones and rigging them with explosives.
"The drones they are using are sold in the market. They are basically camera drones," Shiraj said in an address to parliament, adding the NDS wants to stop the import of the popular devices.
In late October, the Taliban reportedly used a drone to bomb the compound of the governor of Kunduz province.
Shiraj did not confirm the report, but he noted that the Taliban have used drones in Kunduz and Paktia provinces.
While the technique is new to the Taliban, Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
(IS) jihadists operating in Iraq and Syria started using toy planes and hobby drones in 2016 to carry explosives.
And most of the jihadi groups communicate with each other, trade personnel, and put on training clinics, so any skill developed by one group eventually spreads around the world.
IS maintain a small but deadly presence in Afghanistan and have resisted years-long efforts by the US and Afghan forces to wipe them out."We have destroyed their leadership circle but their second layer are young are still active," Shiraj said.
The key is to kill them off faster than new ones can be trained to take over.
IS claimed three deadly attacks in recent weeks in Kabul that killed scores of people, including a rocket attack Saturday.The Taliban and Washington signed a deal in February paving the way for foreign forces to leave Afghanistan entirely by May 2021.
In return, the hard boy group pledged to prevent transnational jihadist groups such as al-Qaeda and IS operating inside Afghanistan.
The pledge, of course, was a lie.