Last month, a security expert told UK media that Daesh (ISIS)* leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi may have moved to Afghanistan following the recent elimination of the group's ‘caliphate' in Iraq and Syria.
An Afghanistan-based US intelligence official believes Daesh, not the Taliban, is currently the most serious threat to US and European security emanating from the war-torn Central Asian country.
“This group is the most near-term threat to our homelands from Afghanistan,” the official said, speaking to AP. “The core mandate is: You will conduct external attacks…That is their goal. It's just a matter of time. It is very scary,” the official noted.
According to the official, the recent string of deadly car and suicide bombing attacks in the Afghan capital of Kabul for which Daesh has claimed responsibility were just “practice runs” for even larger-scale attacks planned for Europe and the US.
The official did not clarify whether US or European intelligence had any idea about how the Afghanistan-based jihadists planned to make their way westward, although tens of thousands of Afghan refugees are thought to have entered the EU in recent years amid the migrant crisis which began in 2015.
Daesh's Afghan presence has grown dramatically amid the decline of the terror group's activities in Iraq and Syria. Ajmal Omar, a member of the provincial council of the Nangarhar Province in eastern Afghanistan, estimates that “thousands”…
