A police spokesman says that a hideout for ISIL was attacked in the Nahri Shahi district, and six fighters were killed.

During a raid overnight, Taliban forces killed six members of the ISIL armed group (ISIS) in northern Afghanistan's Balkh province, a Taliban spokesman said on Tuesday.

The raid is part of the Taliban's efforts to stop the Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP), a branch of the ISIL group that has killed dozens of people in the past few months, including the governor of Balkh, Mohammad Dawood Muzammil, in an attack last month.

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Mohammad Asif Waziri, a spokesman for the Balkh police chief, said that the operation on Monday night was meant to find a place where ISIL was hiding in the Nahri Shahi district. He also said that six people from the armed group died.

Muzammil was known in the area for standing up to ISIL. The group has become the Taliban's biggest security threat since the US-led foreign forces left Afghanistan in August 2021 after 20 years of war.

In January, an explosion at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs killed at least five people and hurt dozens more as workers were leaving for the day.

ISIL has also taken credit for other recent attacks in Kabul, such as a bombing near a checkpoint at the city's military airport that killed and hurt several people and an attack on a Kabul hotel in mid-December.

ISIL has often attacked foreigners and Shia groups in Afghanistan, as well as foreigners and foreign interests.

SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES