Taliban deploying drones to drop bombs, says Afghan intelligence chief
Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security (NDS) says the Taliban militant group has used small drones to drop bombs on government forces in some regions over the past few months.
Ahmad Zia Shiraj, the head of the NDS, said in an address to parliament on Monday that the militants were deploying hobby drones and rigging them with explosives.
“The drones they are using are sold in the market. They are basically camera drones.”
The Taliban, he said, had used drones in Kunduz and Paktia provinces.
In late October, the Taliban reportedly used a drone to bomb the compound of the governor of Kunduz.
The report illustrated a new fighting method used by the militants. While the technique is new to the Taliban, the Daesh Takfiri terrorists operating in Iraq and Syria started using toy planes in 2016 to carry explosives.
Daesh maintains a limited but deadly presence in Afghanistan.
“We have destroyed their leadership circle but their second layer are young … still active,” Shiraj said.
Violence continues in Afghanistan even as Kabul negotiators and the Taliban have been meeting in Qatar to reach a peace deal. There has been little progress in those meetings since September.
Both sides have routinely accused each other of stepping up hostilities and killing civilians.
Scattered calls to boycott the ongoing peace talks have risen following recent back-to-back attacks on education centers in Kabul claimed by Daesh. Some in the government insist they were carried out by the Taliban. The militants deny involvement.
In an agreement reached between the United States and the Taliban in February, the administration of President Donald Trump promised to pull out all the US troops by mid-2021 in return for the Taliban to stop attacks on foreign forces in Afghanistan.
The agreement was also supposed to lay the groundwork for a peace process between the Taliban and the Afghan government. The recent uptick in violence has only made that prospect unlikely.
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