Afghanistan’s intelligence agency said on Saturday its special forces arrested head of Islamic State’s Khorasan branch.
Abdullah Orakzai, popularly known as Aslam Farooqi, was arrested along with 19 of his close aides including two senior commanders of the group, Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security said in a statement.
He took over as ISIS-K head after the killing of his predecessor Abu Saeed Bajawri.Prior to that, he had been working as military chief of Peshawar city, IS commander in Abdul Kheil valley of Achin district and head of IS operations in Khyber Agency.
The militant leader had close ties with terrorist groups including Lashkar-e-Taiba and Haqqani network.
The two senior commanders who were arrested along with Farooqi were Zahid, popularly known as Ma’az, military in-charge of IS in Afghanistan, and Saifullah, popularly known as Abu Talha Pakistani, the head of recruitment in Nangarhar.
