‘They’ve picked on the wrong people’: Afghan president vows to 'bury’ ISIS

President Ashraf Ghani has vowed to “bury” the Islamic State group’s affiliate in Afghanistan. Mr Ghani said the country was united in its determination to eradicate the threat of ISIS. “Afghans are now motivated by revenge. They (IS) have confronted the wrong people,” Mr Ghani said on the sidelines of World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort of Davos. The White House this month also gave the US military legal authority to target the group’s fighters in Afghanistan, the first such authorisation for military action against the group outside Iraq and Syria.

This could be a point of no return for Daesh – we will bury Daesh.

President Ashraf Ghani, speaking to the BBC

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. IS jihadists claimed responsibility for a deadly gun and bomb siege targeting the Pakistani consulate in eastern Jalalabad city on January 13, the group’s first major attack in an Afghan city. In a sign of their growing reach in Afghanistan, the group has taken to the airwaves with a 90-minute Pashto-language radio show called “Voice of the Caliphate”.

They have committed unspeakable atrocities there… We are starting to drive them out.

President Ghani

Ashraf Ghani