Almost 900 people, including Islamic State militants and members of their families, have surrendered to Afghan security forces in the past fortnight, according to reports. Many of the fighters include Indian and Pakistani citizens as well.
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The surrenders happened in the eastern province of Nangarhar, where the Afghan national security forces have launched a ferocious operation against the ISIS.
Now Afghanistan could possibly extradite 13 Indian origin Islamic State terrorists after India and Afghanistan signed bilateral extradition treaty recently.
Since 2016, about a dozen men from Kerala travelled to Afghanistan to join the ISIS. Some of them had converted to Islam and several were accompanied by their families.
In the past two weeks, 243 ISIS fighters and approximately 400 of their family members have surrendered, according to Afghanistan’s Nangarhar provincial governor Shah Mahmood Miakhel. Last Thursday, 82 ISIS fighters surrendered to security forces in Achin district of Nangarhar. They were accompanied by 51 women and 96 children.
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Earlier, about 300 ISIS militants gave up their weapons to the Afghan Special Forces in Nangarhar, according to Waliullah, the army special forces commander in Achin district.
While the US defence ministry said in July that there were less than 2,000 ISIS fighters in Afghanistan, the UN said in the same month that there were between 2,500 and 4,000 fighters in the volatile country.