IS claims bloody attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Libya

Islamist State claimed responsibility for several attacks yesterday. Among other things, the suicide attack on a mosque in the eastern Afghan province of Khost, which killed 26 people. Would be the work of the terrorist organization.

IS also claims the suicide attack on a market in northwestern Pakistan. An attack on a city in the south of Libya, which claimed at least 35 lives, would also be the work of IS fighters. That is what Amaq reports, the mouthpiece of the extremists.

Amaq spoke of nearly 30 people who were killed or wounded on Friday in the attack in Libya. A witness keeps it on nine deaths and the number of people who were kidnapped. A source within the army says that armed fighters occupy a police station in Tazerbo, a city in an oasis, until they managed to drive them away. According to the Afghan authorities, 26 soldiers were killed in the Khost province on Friday and 50 were injured. Amaq speaks of fifty dead and 110 wounded. The explosion occurred in a house of prayer on a military base at the time when mosque-goers were preparing for the Friday prayer. According to the spokesman, the victims all worked for the army.

Pashtun tribal area

In Pakistan, 35 people were killed on Friday when a suicide bomber blew up during a party in the district of Orakzai. According to Amaq, 57 people were killed.

Orakzai used to be a semi-autonomous part of the ethnic Pashtun tribal area of Pakistan along the Afghan border. The region was for decades a refuge for Muslim militants who fought in Afghanistan, and the last years against the Pakistani state.

Although Islamic State has been greatly reduced in recent years, the terror group cannot yet be written off. Recent estimates from the Pentagon show that almost 32,000 IS fighters are still active in Syria and Iraq.