Taliban take over Afghan province of Nuristan after US withdrawal. Militants now “marching towards Mohmand and Bajaur to help their fellow Taliban fighting against Pakistani troops.”

The United States has withdrawn its troops from its four key bases in Nuristan, on the border with Pakistan, leaving the northeastern province as a safe haven for the Taliban-led insurgency to orchestrate its regional battles.
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The province is now under the effective control of the network belonging to Qari Ziaur Rahman, a Taliban commander with strong ties to Bin Laden. This makes Nuristan the first Afghan province to be controlled by a network inspired by al-Qaeda.

In a telephone conversation on Wednesday, a militant linked to Rahman said that now that they had control of Nuristan, the militants are “marching towards Mohmand and Bajaur to help their fellow Taliban fighting against Pakistani troops”, referring to two tribal agencies across the border.

Rahman is not the son of a legendary mujahideen commander, but of a cleric named Maulana Dilbar. His ties do not lie with Pakistan, but with Bin Laden, having instructed him in the lessons of the Prophet Mohammed’s life.

Ziaur, in his early thirties, was raised in the camps of Arab militants, who instilled in him the passion to fight against the Americans – not only in Afghanistan, but across the globe. Ziaur did not get his command as any hereditary right. First he had to prove himself on the battlefield, which he did by taking on US troops in Kunar and Nuristan provinces. He was the first to mount operations against the US in the Karghal district of Kunar and he engineered encounters in Nuristan.