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Afghanistan
NATO Voices Doubt over IS Link in Fatal Afghan Bombing
2015-04-24
[AnNahar] NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A collection of multinational and multilingual and multicultural armed forces, all of differing capabilities, working toward a common goal by pulling in different directions...
 officials have voiced doubt over claims that the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
 group was behind a fatal bombing last week billed as the first major attack by the jihadists in Afghanistan.
See that story here.
The bombing on Saturday destroyed a crowd of government officials waiting to draw their salaries outside the Kabul Bank in the eastern city of Jalalabad, killing at least 34 people and wounding more than 100.

It was the most lethal bombing in the country to be claimed by bandidos myrmidons allegedly allied with the IS group, which has captured swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq but has never formally acknowledged having a presence in Afghanistan.

But Resolute Support, the new name for the NATO mission in Afghanistan, has expressed doubt over any IS link to the Jalalabad attack.

"We have not yet seen evidence of (IS) direction or support of the attacks," Resolute Support front man Christopher Belcher said in a statement this week.

"Jalalabad continues to be an area with significant Taliban influence and this attack fits the pattern of past Taliban attacks in the region -- underscoring that this attack does not represent a fundamental change in the security environment."

The Taliban, which distanced itself from Saturday's attack, have seen defections in recent months -- with some bandidos myrmidons apparently adopting the IS flag to rebrand themselves as a more lethal force as NATO troops depart.

But analysts doubt whether they have the ideological and logistical backing of His Supreme Immensity, Caliph of the Faithful and Galactic Overlord, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
...formerly merely the head of ISIL and a veteran of the Bagram jailhouse. Looks like a new messiah to bajillions of Moslems, like just another dead-eyed mass murder to the rest of us...
, the self-proclaimed caliph of the Islamic State, which is struggling to retain territory in Syria and Iraq.
Posted by:trailing wife

#1  this attack does not represent a fundamental change in the security environment

"Our mall cops remain vigilant!"
Posted by: Skidmark   2015-04-24 02:20  

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