Iran, Taliban call for security cooperation to fight Daesh: special envoy
TEHRAN – The Iranian special envoy for Afghanistan has hailed his recent constructive meetings with the Taliban officials, saying the two countries have stressed the need for close interaction in the fight against Daesh (ISIS/ISIL), Tasnim reported on Saturday.
In a post on his Twitter account, Hassan Kazemi Qomi said he has held constructive negotiations with acting Taliban First Deputy Prime Minister Abdul Ghani Baradar and Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi in Kabul.
“In these meetings, the two sides stressed the need for promotion of positive interaction and expansion of relations in various fields, particularly the economic field, and called for enhancement of security cooperation in the fight against Daesh and outlaws on both sides of the common border,” the Iranian envoy said.
Kazemi Qomi also noted that Iran and the Taliban emphasized the need for vigilance and caution in countering the common enemies, who seek to sow discord the Iranian and Afghan nations.
Afghanistan has been in turmoil since the Taliban, who had previously ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, regained power in August 2021 amid a chaotic U.S. troop withdrawal from the war-torn country.
Since then the country has been the scene of several terrorist attacks, most of them carried out by the Daesh terrorist group.
Just on August 6, at least eight people were killed and 18 others injured in Kabul during a Shia mourning gathering in the holy month of Muharram.
The explosion took place in the Sarkariz area of Kabul. The explosive devices were placed in a cart.
ISIS has claimed the responsibility for the bomb attack.
Also in April, at least six people were killed and 11 others wounded, including students, in a twin suicide bombing outside a boys’ school in western Kabul.
Two improvised explosive devices (IEDs) were detonated outside Abdul Rahim Shahid high school, located in the predominantly Hazara neighborhood of Dasht-e-Barchi, while students were leaving their morning classes.
In May 2021, before the U.S. left Afghanistan, three bombs went off outside a girls’ school also in Dasht-e-Barchi, killing at least 95 people and wounding 240 more, many of whom were young students.
In October 2021, Daesh also conducted two separate suicide attacks at mosques, two of the highest civilian casualty incidents of explosive violence recorded in the country, after the bombing of the girls’ school in Dasht-e-Barchi and the explosions at Kabul’s international airport during the August evacuations. The first incident in October targeted the Said Abad Shia mosque in Kunduz city that killed at least 50 and wounded 100 more. A week later, an ISKP (Islamic State – Khorasan Province) suicide attack on the Bibi Fatima mosque in Kandahar killed at least 63 people and wounded 93 others.