Afghan forces retook a prison in the country’s east on Monday afternoon, following an hours-long gunbattle a day after the facility was targeted by ISIS militants in an attack that killed 29 people. The prison is believed to hold hundreds of ISIS members.
The attack highlighted the challenges ahead for Afghanistan, even as US and NATO forces begin to withdraw following a US-Taliban peace deal struck earlier this year.
Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman Fawad Aman said the prison in Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar province, located some 115 kilometres east of Kabul, was taken back in the afternoon — 24 hours after it came under attack. The fighting had also left at least 50 wounded, he said.
Even as Afghan troops retook the prison, ISIS militants continued to fire on Afghan security forces from a nearby neighborhood. Sporadic gunfire rang out from nearby residential buildings in central Jalalabad, an area of high security near the provincial Governor’s office.
As security forces swept through the prison, they found the bodies of two Taliban prisoners apparently killed by the Islamic State group, showing the tensions between the two militant factions battling each other in eastern Afghanistan.