The Washington Post - 20.08.2019

TUESDAY, AUGUST 20 , 2019. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE A

Division, based at Fort Bragg, N.C.

They were killed July 29 in Uruzgan

province.

All troops were killed in action in

Afghanistan unless otherwise

indicated.

Total fatalities include six civilian

employees of the Defense

Department. They also include

service members killed in other

locations involved in Operation

Enduring Freedom and Operation

Freedom’s Sentinel, including

Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; Djibouti;

Eritrea; Ethiopia; Jordan; Kenya;

Kyrgyzstan; Pakistan; Philippines;

Seychelles; Sudan; Tajikistan;

Turkey; Uzbekistan; and Yemen.

SOURCE: Defense Department

July 13 in Faryab province.

Aviation Electronics Technician

2nd Class Slayton Saldana, 24,

of Virginia; Helicopter Sea Combat

Squadron (HSC) 5, part of Carrier

Air Wing 7, assigned to Abraham

Lincoln Carrier Strike Group. The

sailor was declared dead after a

July 17 man overboard incident on

the USS Abraham Lincoln in the

Arabian Sea.

Pfc. Brandon Jay Kreischer, 20,

of Stryker, Ohio.

Spec. Michael Isaiah Nance, 24,

of Chicago.

The two soldiers were assigned to

1st Battalion, 505th Parachute

Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade

Combat Team, 82nd Airborne

Afghanistan

war deaths

Total number of U.S. military

deaths since 2001 and names of

the U.S. troops killed recently in the

Afghanistan war, as announced by

the Pentagon:

FATALITIES

2,

(1,904 in hostile actions; 524 in

nonhostile actions)

The latest deaths:

Sgt. Maj. James G. Sartor, 40, of

Teague, Tex.; 2nd Battalion, 10th

Special Forces Group (Airborne),

based at Fort Carson, Colo. Killed

BY CLAIRE PARKER

The Islamic State claimed re-
sponsibility for a suicide bombing
that killed 63 people and wounded
nearly 200 at a wedding in Kabul
over the weekend, signaling the
group’s enduring reach and un-
derscoring one of the challenges
facing U.S.-Taliban peace talks.
The Islamic State lost its self-
proclaimed caliphate in Iraq and
Syria this year. But Saturday’s
bombing showed that the militant
group remains a potent force be-
yond the borders it once claimed
and fixed a glare on one of its
lesser-known but growing affili-
ates: the Islamic State in Khoras-
an, as the Afghanistan branch is
known.
Here’s what is known about the
Islamic State in Afghanistan:
The Islamic State has a grow-
ing foothold in Afghanistan.
The Islamic State in Khorasan
began operating in Afghanistan in

2015. Its name invokes Khorasan
      Province, a medieval region that
      encompassed parts of Afghani-
      stan, Iran and Central Asia.
      Started by Pakistani national
      Hafiz Saeed Khan, the group be-
      gan as a small band of mostly
      Pakistani militants operating in
      the eastern Afghanistan province
      of Nangahar. Some recruits came
      from the Taliban, though mem-
      bers of other extremist groups in
      the region also defected to the
      Khorasan group.
      Like its parent group — the
      Islamic State in Iraq and Syria —
      the Afghanistan offshoot has am-
      bitions to hold territory and is
      known for carrying out brutal at-
      tacks on civilians, including wom-
      en and children. Shiites are partic-
      ularly frequent targets.
      The number of Islamic State-
      affiliated fighters in Afghanistan
      has grown to between 2,500 and
      4,000, according to a recent esti-
      mate by the United Nations.
      The Islamic State in Khorasan
      has never successfully captured
      territory in Afghanistan, and it
      remains much weaker than rival

militant groups in the region such

as the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Still,

the group has remained “resil-

ient,” said Michael Kugelman, a

South Asia specialist at the Wilson

Center.

The group’s strategy centers

on attacking “soft targets.”

The wedding attack was signifi-

cantly more destructive than oth-

er recent attacks, but it was “vin-

tage ISIS in Afghanistan,” said

Fawaz Gerges, the author of a re-

cent book on the rise of the Islamic

State.

“The most effective means to

stay in business is to carry out

devastating attacks against soft

targets, and to show that it’s purer

than the Taliban and al-Qaeda,”

Gerges said.

Since it was routed from Iraq

and Syria, the Islamic State has

increasingly turned its attention

to other parts of the world, export-

ing its ideology and tactics as it

seeks to transition from governing

to waging a global insurgency.

Experts are divided over the

threat the Islamic State poses in

Afghanistan.

Some analysts have argued that

Afghanistan could provide fertile

ground for the central Islamic

State organization to regroup. But

experts and government officials

disagree over just how great that

threat is.

U.N. Secretary General António

Guterres warned this month that

after losing its territory in Iraq

and Syria, the Islamic State would

find Afghanistan an ideal conflict

zone from which to recruit fight-

ers.

American military officers

agree.

But U.S. intelligence officials

say that the Islamic State in

Khorasan lacks the know-how of

the central group and does not

pose a threat to Western countries.

Still, Gerges described the

group as “a very stubborn affili-

ate.”

The United States has fought

the group in Afghanistan with

mixed success.

U.S. airstrikes took out key lead-

ers of the Islamic State in Khoras-

an — including its founder — early

on. And in 2017, the U.S. military

dropped the most powerful bomb

in its arsenal on a cave where

fighters were hiding in Nangahar

province.

“You’ve had a relentless cam-

paign of Afghan and U.S. airstrikes

in recent years... but despite all

that, it’s remained there,”

Kugelman said.

This has factored into ongoing

peace talks between the Trump

administration and the Taliban,

particularly as the two parties

wrestle over whether the United

States will keep a counterterror-

ism force in the country after it

withdraws other troops.

The Taliban wants all U.S. forc-

es out of the country.

A peace deal could drive Tali-

ban members to the Islamic

State.

The Taliban and the Islamic

State are rivals, and the Taliban

has fought the other group for

years.

The Taliban sees the Islamic

State as “an existential threat,”

Gerges said, and it has increasing-

ly sought to define itself in con-

trast to the Islamic State as more

reasonable, less bloody and will-

ing to operate as a mainstream

political actor.

Despite the rivalry, disillu-

sioned Taliban fighters have de-

fected to Islamic State affiliates.

Many of the group’s initial recruits

formerly belonged to the Taliban.

A peace agreement with the

United States could fuel another

exodus. The Taliban is not a mono-

lithic group, experts say, and

more-extreme members may see

dealing with the United States as a

betrayal of the cause.

[email protected]

Islamic State remains a potent force in Afghanistan

BY JOANNA SLATER

AND NIHA MASIH

new delhi — India slightly
eased its communication block-
ade in Kashmir on Monday, but
conditions remained far from
normal two weeks after the gov-
ernment stripped the restive re-
gion of its autonomy and state-
hood.
Residents of Srinagar, the
Kashmiri capital, confirmed that
the authorities had reconnected
some landlines, although many
were still unreachable. Mobile
connections and Internet access
remained severed, and hundreds
of local politicians were being
held incommunicado. Most
schools remained closed.
Kashmiris have faced an un-
precedented clampdown since
Aug. 5, when India announced it
would revoke the region’s autono-
my, undoing seven decades of
policy toward the country’s only
Muslim-majority state. On Friday,
the U.N. Security Council con-
vened to discuss India’s move but
did not issue a statement on the
withdrawal of Kashmir’s special
status.
On Monday, President Trump
and Indian Prime Minister Nar-
endra Modi held a 30-minute
phone call in which they dis-
cussed “regional and bilateral
matters” with “warmth and cordi-
ality,” according to a statement
from India’s Foreign Ministry.
The statement did not mention
Kashmir by name. But it said that
Modi had spoken to Trump about
the “extreme rhetoric” of certain
leaders in the region — a refer-
ence to Pakistani Prime Minister
Imran Khan, who has issued
harsh critiques of India’s move in
Kashmir and recently called
Modi’s government “fascist.”
India has said the restrictions
on movement and communica-
tions and the detentions of politi-
cal leaders in Kashmir are neces-
sary to prevent violence.
It is not clear how long the
clampdown will last. In 2016,
Internet access was blocked for
several months when deadly pro-
tests swept Kashmir after secu-
rity forces killed Burhan Wani, a
militant who had gained a follow-
ing among Kashmiri youths.
Kashmir, which is claimed by
India and Pakistan, is home to a
long-running anti-India insur-
gency.
A top local bureaucrat had
pledged Friday that within days,
life in Jammu and Kashmir, as the
region is officially known, “would
become completely normal.” But
there was little sign of that Mon-
day: Schools in Srinagar were
locked or had only teachers — not

students — show up. While steel

barricades and barbed wire were

removed from some intersec-

tions, many neighborhood roads

remained blocked to traffic, and

storefronts were shuttered.

In the Kashmir Valley, resi-

dents expressed fury and anxiety

at the removal of the state’s spe-

cial status. A major protest in-

volving thousands of people took

place Aug. 9, defying official pro-

hibitions on public gatherings.

A number of other protests

have also unfolded in recent days,

according to media reports.

“Things are limping back to

normal,” said Munir Khan, a sen-

ior police official in Srinagar, al-

though the prohibition on public

gatherings was still in force. The

detentions of political leaders are

a “preventive” measure, he said,

and authorities would decide on

their release “when things get

better.”

All of the state’s most promi-

nent politicians have been de-

tained, including two former

chief ministers, Mehbooba Mufti

and Omar Abdullah. Shah Faesal,

a bureaucrat who recently

formed his own political par-

ty, was reportedly detained in

New Delhi before traveling

abroad and taken back to Kash-

mir.

A fact-finding team of three

well-known activists and an aca-

demic that traveled to Kashmir

last week said that in Srinagar

and nearby villages, hundreds of

boys and teenagers had been

picked up by security forces and

held in detention.

On Monday, many parents in

Srinagar kept their children

home from schools. Mustafa Par-

ray, 40, who runs a medical clinic,

said he did not send his child to

kindergarten.

“The people are seething with

anger,” he said. Kashmiris “have

lost their identity, and we will be

deprived of our land and jobs.”

The removal of the special status

also invalidated restrictions on

nonresidents buying land in

Kashmir.

Arusha Farooq, a college pro-

fessor in Delhi, said she had been

trying the landline number of her

family’s home in Srinagar since

Friday with no success. “This is

mental harassment, nothing

else,” Farooq said. She had decid-

ed to return home next week to

check on her elderly grandpar-

ents in person. “I have to go to

make sure they are all right,” she

said.

[email protected]

[email protected]

Ishfaq Naseem in Srinagar

contributed to this report.

India’s clampdown in

Kashmir loosens slightly

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