KABUL: (MEP) President Mohamad Ashraf Ghani has promised to “bury” the (IS) militant group, whose local offshoot has clashed with government forces and Taliban fighters.
Mr Ghani in a BBC interview said IS was “not an Afghan phenomenon” and its atrocities had “separated the people”.
He added that “Afghans are now motivated by revenge,” “They [IS] have confronted the wrong people.”
Mr Ghani also called for anti-IS action at regional and international level.
A lot of my diplomacy has been to create the regional consensus, and a region with the inheritance of previous animosities and short-sighted behaviour is something that is going to require effort and focus.”
The US state department said last week that it had designated the IS offshoot in Afghanistan as a terrorist organization.
It said the group had formed in January last year and was made up of former members of the Pakistani Taliban and Afghan Taliban.
Ashraf Ghani warned that if peace talks with the Taliban did not start by April the conflict would increase, with consequences across the region.
“Time is not a friend,” he said. “We all understand that February and March are crucial.”
The Afghan president said observers should understand that the war in his country was “just one component” of a wider war that also encompassed Pakistan.
The problems… are interrelated [and] cannot be solved by use of force in one country.
Pakistan should take action against Taliban groups that did not agree to talks he suggested.
He said, “We need to see that we have common interests and we need to act together to preserve the state system and combine it”.
