(MENAFN- Afghanistan Times) AT Monitoring Desk
KABUL: Russia's top security chief is raising alarm about
extremist militants massing on Afghanistan's northern border.
Alexander Bortnikov, chief of the main Russian intelligence
agency FSB, said on a visit to Tajikistan on Tuesday that some 5,000 fighters
of an ISIS extremist group affiliate have gathered in areas bordering on former
Soviet states in Central Asia, saying that most of them fought alongside ISIS
in Syria.
Bortnikov, in comments carried by Russian news agencies,
called for tighter border control to prevent a spillover.
The ISIS affiliate emerged in 2014 and refers to itself as
the Khorasan Province, an ancient term for an area that includes parts of
Afghanistan, Iran and Central Asia.
It has pledged allegiance to the ISIS in Iraq and Syria but
consists mainly of disgruntled former Taliban and other insurgents from South
and Central Asia.
Russia has been expressing this concern for several years.
Some experts say the Kremlin is exaggerating the number of extremists to
justify Russia's outreach to the Taliban.
In recent years, Russia has emerged as an influential power
broker in Afghanistan where it fought a disastrous war in the 1980s.
Russian officials have been mediating between feuding
factions, and even spoke for lifting international sanctions against the
Taliban.
The Taliban has waged bitter battles against the followers
of the Khorasan Province, most often in eastern Nangarhar province but also in
the north of Afghanistan.
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