Taliban reject UN team’s report

KABUL (AFP): Afghanistan’s Taliban government rejected on Thursday a recent UN Security Council report claiming that new Al-Qaeda training centers have been established on its soil.

The report was released this week by a UNSC committee pursuant to resolutions concerning Daesh, Al-Qaeda and associated individuals. It was based on assessments by the UN sanctions monitoring team, which cites intelligence provided by member states to warn that Al-Qaeda “was reported to have established up to eight new training camps in Afghanistan” and that it “maintains safe houses to facilitate the movement between Afghanistan and the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

The report also said that Al-Qaeda maintained a “holding pattern in Afghanistan under Taliban patronage.” Taliban chief spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement that the allegation was “false” and a part of “propaganda” by the countries that supported Afghanistan’s previous pro-US administration.

“There is no one related to Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, nor does the Islamic Emirate allow anyone to use the territory of Afghanistan against others,” he said. The UN sanctions team found that a regional affiliate of Daesh — known as Islamic State Khorasan Province, or ISIS-K — remained the “greatest threat within Afghanistan,” while there was an observed strengthening of the TTP.