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               IS Losing Its Grip in Afghanistan, US General Says

   by Jeff Seldin

   Coalition forces are seeing success against Islamic State (IS) fighters
   in Afghanistan, where they are rapidly recapturing land from the
   insurgent army, a United States military spokesman said Thursday.

   During a briefing at the Pentagon, Brigadier General Charles Cleveland,
   a spokesman for the NATO-led Resolute Support Mission, told reporters
   IS is losing its grip in Afghanistan. Three months ago, he said, IS
   held between six and eight districts, now it holds just two to three.

   "We think we have significantly decreased the footprint that they have
   in Afghanistan," he said.

   The U.S. military estimates there are between 1,000 and 3,000 IS
   fighters left in Afghanistan, though Cleveland said the actual number
   is "probably on the lower end of that."

   Now, as NATO forces are splintering the IS strongholds, IS fighters
   have been seen fleeing to the Kunar and Nuristan provinces along
   Afghanistan's western border with Pakistan, where they are just "trying
   to survive," Cleveland said.

   Cleveland said IS forces left in Afghanistan are mostly "disaffected"
   Pakistani and Afghan Taliban, or remnants of the Islamic Movement of
   Uzbekistan. While anecdotal, he said military commanders in Afghanistan
   are "beginning to see members of [IS] defect" to the Afghan government
   or to the Taliban.

   NATO has hit IS fighters with between 70 and 80 counterterror strikes
   since the beginning of the year. And while they have largely beat back
   IS fighters, Cleveland cautioned that the militants still "present the
   potential to be an enormous threat."

   "They've got the ability to really catch fire," he said.

   Despite setbacks, the Afghan military is also successfully putting
   pressure on IS and working to bolster its ranks. The Afghan National
   Defense and Security Forces lost about 5,500 troops last year, but held
   together; and Cleveland said he is expecting them to go on the
   offensive against both the Taliban and IS this year.

   "The [Afghan] military did not collapse," Cleveland said. "While they
   certainly took some hits, they were able to keep themselves together.
   So we don't have a Mosul here in Afghanistan. We don't have a Ramadi or
   a Fallujah or anything like that."
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References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/islamic-state-losing-grip-afghanistan-us-general-says/3286077.html