Significant increase in presence of ISIL-K in Afghanistan and their capacity to carry out attacks, India tells UN Security Council
United Nations, August 30
India has told the UN Security Council that there is a significant increase in ISIL-K presence in Afghanistan, as it warned that linkages between proscribed outfits such as Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed and provocative statements by other terror groups pose a direct threat to the region’s peace and stability.
“As we have repeatedly stated at the Security Council, India has direct stakes in ensuring the return of peace and stability, given our position as a contiguous neighbour and long-standing partner of Afghanistan, as well as our strong historical and civilisational linkages to the Afghan people,” India’s Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Ruchira Kamboj said.
Speaking at the UNSC briefing on Afghanistan on Monday, Kamboj underlined that on terrorism, the recent findings of the 1988 Sanctions Committee’s Analytical Support and the Sanctions Monitoring Team Report indicated that the current authorities in Afghanistan needed to take much stronger action to fulfil their anti-terrorism commitments.
“There is a significant increase in the presence of ISIL-K (The Islamic State-Khorasan Province) in the country and their capacity to carry out attacks. ISIL-K, with its base reportedly in Afghanistan, continues to issue threats of terrorist attacks on other countries,” she said.
Kamboj told the Council that the series of attacks at religious places of the minority community, including the recent attack at the Sikh gurdwara on June 18 in Kabul followed by another bomb explosion near the same gurdwara on July 27, is “hugely alarming”.
“The linkages between groups listed by the UN Security Council such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Jaish-e-Mohammed as well as provocative statements made by other terrorist groups operating out of Afghanistan pose a direct threat to the peace and stability of the region,’ she said.
In her address, Kamboj stressed the need to see concrete progress in ensuring that “such proscribed terrorists, entities, or their aliases do not get any support, tacit or direct, either from Afghan soil or from the terror sanctuaries based in the region”.
