Ashraf Ghani vows to bury ISIS franchise

US official: Afghan Army ‘rebuilt’ for battle with Taliban

President Ashraf Ghani has vowed to “bury” the Islamic State group’s affiliate in Afghanistan, a report said, after Washington granted the US military legal authority to strike the jihadists in the country.

The group, which controls territory across Syria and Iraq, has made alarming inroads in Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar province, as the country grapples with a resurgent Taliban insurgency. ISIS jihadists claimed responsibility for a deadly gun and bomb siege targeting the Pakistani consulate in Jalalabad city on January 13, the group’s first major attack in an Afghan city.

“This could be a point of no return for Daesh — we will bury Daesh,” Mr Ghani told BBC in an interview released Monday, using the Arabic acronym for ISIS.

“Afghans are now motivated by revenge. They (ISIS) have confronted the wrong people,” Mr Ghani said on the sidelines of World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort of Davos. The US state department earlier this month formally designated the group’s affiliate in Afghanistan and Pakistan — which calls itself “Khorasan Province” — as a terrorist organisation. Meanwhile, after months of ferocious fighting, Afghan Army units battling the Taliban in southern Helmand province are facing major restructuring and leadership changes, with several key commanders being replaced, a US military official said Monday.

US Army Brig. Gen. Wilson Shoffner, said that the Afghan Army corps in Helmand is now being “rebuilt” and that senior officers are being repla-ced. The reasons for the changes “are a combination of incompetence, corruption and ineffectiveness,” Gen. Shoffner said.

The corps’ commander has been replaced, along with “some brigade commanders and some key corps staff up to full colonel level,” he said. The Afghan defence ministry confirmed the changes in Helmand.