Within hours of the arrest, Afghan forces held 37 more ISIS (KP) members from Kabul.



New Delhi: The arrest of Aslam Farooqi, also known as Abdullah Orakzai, who is reported to be the chief of ISIS’s “Khorasan Province’ (KP) chapter, by Afghan security forces on 4 April from Kandahar, is likely to open new chapters of close links between the Pakistan army and terror groups operating in the region, Afghanistan based sources, who are very closely related to the situation developing on the ground, have told The Sunday Guardian.

According to these sources, officials in Pakistan’s spy agency ISI and the Pakistan army, who handle these terror groups, are concerned that Farooqi is likely to share sensitive, credible and verifiable information with the National Directorate of Security (NDS), Afghanistan’s intelligence agencies, which might put them in “bad light”, if they become public.

The nature of information, official sources, said is likely to reveal the specific assistance Farooqi had received from the Pakistan army and the ISI to carry out operations in Afghanistan and other “enemy” countries. Within hours of the arrest of Farooqi, the Afghan forces arrested at least 37 more ISIS (KP) members from Kabul.

It is because of these large-scale ramifications that Pakistan is pressurising Afghanistan to hand over Farooqi to them. Pakistan is likely to use the Taliban peace deal as a leverage to bring in the United States into the picture to pressurise Afghanistan to hand over Farooqi to them.

On Thursday, Atif Mashal, Afghanistan’s ambassador to Pakistan, was summoned to the Pakistani foreign ministry, seeking the custody of Farooqi. Though Afghanistan is yet to officially respond to Pakistan’s request, Kabul-based sources said that Kabul was unlikely to hand over Farooqi “any time soon”.

Former Director of NDS, Rahmatullah Nabil, on 10 April, made it clear, even though unofficially, the intent of the country’s security agencies while tweeting against Pakistan’s request seeking Farooqi’s custody.

Farooqi, who belongs to Orakzai district, Kohat Division, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Pakistan, before moving to ISIS, was a part of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) in the late 1990s, an anti-Shia terror group, many members of which, later joined Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

LeJ, too, traces its origin to Orakzai district and is known for carrying out sectarian attacks, including against the Shias and religious minorities, including Hindu nationals of Pakistan.

Pro-India watchers in Kabul and people in Delhi are watching the developments related to Farooqi very minutely. It is pertinent to mention that ISIS (KP) had claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing at the Shor Bazaar Gurudwara in Kabul on the morning of 25 March in which at least 25 Sikh worshippers had died.

According to Baloch leader Dr Allah Nazar, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi was in fact acting as Pakistan army’s B-team in the Balochistan area where it was engaged in regular fire-fighting with the Baloch nationalists.

The 51-year-old Farooqi was one of the closest associates of Taliban founder, the one-eyed Mullah Mohammad Omar and Osama Bin Laden.

While media reports coming from Kabul have indicated that Farooqi was leading ISIS (KP) at the time of his arrest, independent sources on the ground in Kabul have said that Farooqi was removed from the said post after Afghani members of ISIS (KP) “revolted” against being led by Farooqi. These independent sources told The Sunday Guardian that now, the ISIS (KP) is being led by an Afghani individual from Kunar province.