Iran’s permanent mission to the United Nations has voiced concern regarding the increase in activities of the so-called Islamic State in Afghanistan, a group that already has spread death and destruction in two Arab countries.
Gholam Hossein Dehqani, deputy permanent representative to the UN, expressed concern at a Security Council meeting on Tuesday, according to Press TV.
He called attention to a report by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, which said armed conflict in Afghanistan currently stood at its highest level since 2001 -- when the United States invaded the improvised South Asian country under the guise of fighting terror.
“Afghanistan continues to face major security, political and economic challenges,” the envoy told the council in a speech. He communicated Tehran’s concern about IS influence and expansion in Afghanistan as well as the emergence there of affiliated outfits like Daesh-Khorasan, the so-called Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and East Turkestan Islamic Movement. Daesh is an Arabic acronym for IS. Failure to seriously confront these groups, Dehqani said, would mean that the international community should await a more troubled future. The IS terror group (aka Daesh, ISIS and ISIL), which is mainly based in war-torn Iraq and Syria, has killed and maimed thousands of civilians and government troops in the two war-ravaged Arab countries since 2013. Latest reports say the Afghan province of Nangarhar, which borders Pakistan, has been the area where the medieval group has gained a foothold.
