News - Afghanistan

Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security (NDS) detained two Tajikistan citizens accused of insurgency in Afghanistan and reportedly belonging to the smaller militant group Tohir Yo'ldosh, the NDS deputy spokesman said Tuesday.

Shafiqullah Taheri said at a briefing in Kabul that the detainees had trained in Pakistan's Waziristan region and were planning an attack in Afghanistan's eastern Kapisa province.

The Tajik nationals were captured in the Surobi district of the Afghan capital Kabul while travelling towards Kapisa, he said.

In video footage provided by the NDS, the detainees confess their training and aims to camera.

"We went to Azerbaijan from Tajikistan then to Iran and then to Pakistan's Quetta city. We received military training in northern Waziristan camp. Our purpose was to do Jihad in Afghanistan," one of the detainees said in the footage.

Tohir Yo'ldosh is named after its Uzbek leader Tohir Yuldashev who was reported killed in a US airstrike in South Waziristan in 2009. It maintains links with the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and the Taliban.

Taheri also rejected reports by Afghan and Western media outlets that Saturday's suicide attack on an NDS office in southern Kandahar province was carried out by one of the intelligence agency's staff.

The attack killed six people – four NDS staff and two Americans – including the deputy provincial security chief Ghulam Rasool.

Taheri also added that another two men were caught carrying explosives devices and weapons by Afghan security forces in Balkh and Takhar provinces recently.