Taliban vs ISKP in Nangarhar's Jalalabad, one killed in blast
Though no group has claimed responsibility for the attack, an affiliate of Islamic State (ISKP) is believed to be behind it. The terror group has claimed the attacks on Taliban earlier too.
One person died and seven were injured in an explosion in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad in Nangarhar province, reports from local media said on Saturday. The Taliban, which rules the country as Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, have launched an investigation.
Reports claim that the person killed was a member of Taliban. The incident took place when a Taliban convoy hit a roadside mine.
Though no group has claimed responsibility for the attack, an affiliate of Islamic State (ISKP) is believed to be behind it. The terror group has claimed the attacks on Taliban earlier too.
The ISKP is headquartered in eastern Afghanistan.
On Thursday, unidentified gunmen, believed to be from ISKP, shot and killed four Taliban members inside a car. Locals in the Farmi Hada area discovered the dead bodies with their hands tied.
On Wednesday, several explosions and an armed attack occurred in Jalalabad again, resulting in the death of five people, two of whom were Taliban.
Earlier this month, three people were killed and 19 others injured in an explosion in Jalalabad. The next day, a bomb went off in the same city in the area of the bus station.
Two civilians died, and one Taliban supporter was wounded in that blast. The ISKP took responsibility for the explosions for those blasts too.
Taliban members continue to maintain enhanced security measures on the major roads within the city limits of Jalalabad.
The Taliban have battled with the Islamic State since its emergence in Afghanistan in 2014. The burgeoning ISKP has claimed responsibility for most recent attacks, including the horrific bombing outside the Kabul airport that killed 13 US service personnel and 169 Afghans during last month's chaotic evacuations.
The ISKP has adopted many of the Taliban's tactics of urban warfare that marked their own successful guerrilla campaign in the 1990s.
While Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid has downplayed the threat, saying that Islamic State had no effective presence in Afghanistan, commanders on the ground do not dismiss the threat so lightly.
ISKP is believed to draw many of its fighters from the ranks of the Taliban or the Pakistani version of the Taliban, known as the TTP.