Former defense minister Ahmad Vahidi raised the alarm about Washington’s continued support for the self-styled Islamic State terrorist group and said the US is seeking to move the extremists to Central Asia and Afghanistan.
Speaking to reporters in Tehran on Friday, Vahidi pointed to the collapse of the terror group in the Middle East region and said western powers had backed the terrorists and tried to prevent their defeat in Iraq and Syria, Tasnim News Agency reported. Since the fall of IS in the two countries, the US has sought to move the terrorists to Central Asia and Afghanistan, he noted. The top general called for “alertness” to the spread of terrorist currents in the region. In November, IS terrorists were flushed out of their last stronghold in Syria’s Abu Kamal. The city’s liberation marked the end to the group’s self-proclaimed caliphate it had declared in 2014. President Hassan Rouhani has also warned of re-emergence of IS in other regions, particularly Central Asia.
“After suffering a complete defeat in Iraq and Syria, terrorists are likely to try to permeate across the region.”
