A United Nations (UN) report has said that the Islamic State (ISIS) continues to recruit militants from the restive Afghanistan-Pakistan border region even as the terrorist organisation is struggling financially and has resorted to extortion for funds.
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The 19th report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team about ISIS was submitted to the Security Council Sanctions Committee this week. The report stated that according to a UN member state, ISIS previously had at least 2,000 to 3,500 militants in the region. However, that number has not fallen significantly even after the organisation suffered heavy losses in Afghanistan last year.
"ISIL (also known as ISIS) continues to be able to recruit from the Afghanistan/Pakistan border region, and the increasing refugee population in Afghanistan may provide a fertile recruitment group. ISIL was aware of that possibility," the report said, according to the Press Trust of India.
The UN report also stated that the member states confirmed that ISIS leader in Afghanistan Hafiz Saeed Khan was killed in July 2016 in an airstrike. Khan, however, was not listed as a terrorist under the UN.
"Al-Qaida core leaders in the region had been decimated over the past nine years and reduced to acting as figureheads. The Al-Qaida leader, Aiman Muhammed Rabi al-Zawahiri is not sending people or money to affiliates and finds it very hard to communicate with them," the report said.
"While the Al-Qaida core knows that it cannot leave the area, it remains hopeful that the Taliban will be successful and that it can piggyback on that success. Nonetheless, the lack of funds does not appear to hamper its ambition, with Member States noting that it appears to be well equipped and uses military-grade explosives for improvised explosive device attacks in Kabu," the report added.
The UN report also said that ISIS has lost a considerable amount of territory in eastern Afghanistan in the past 12 months and its ability to retain the captured territory was often thwarted by Taliban militants.
