Daesh insurgents have returned to parts of Kot district in Nangarhar after the area was cleared of militants during a large-scale military operation by security forces in July last year.

On Friday they torched at least 60 houses in the district, officials confirmed.

However, the Ministry of Defense (MoD) said the insurgent group will be eliminated in the district in the near future.

“We cleared Kot [district] but the areas which were attacked by them [Daesh] are near the borders. They wanted to join the public uprising forces pretending to help government. We will suppress them soon,” MoD’s deputy spokesman Mohammad Radmanish said. 

The MoD recently said the district and other parts of Nangarhar will be cleared of militants in Operation Shafaq 2. 

Meanwhile, the Afghan police were criticized for not maintaining the cleared areas.

“Clearance operations are conducted but due to lack of security check posts, Daesh returned to villages and areas. And then they fell to Daesh,” said an official.

Commenting on this, Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said: “The enemy would change its location from one place to other sometimes, but they are under our radar. The main goal of the operations is to eliminate the enemy.”

This comes after President Ashraf Ghani said during a trip to Nangarhar last year that Daesh will be eliminated in the province.