The National Directorate of Security, in a statement, says that it has arrested, Abdullah Orakzai aka Aslam Farooqi, the Khurasan leader of Daesh, along with 19 of his men, including Qari Zahid and Saifullah aka Abu Talha Pakistani, in an operation conducted by the special forces of the directorate.

According to NDS, Aslam Farooqi, in his first talk, has spoken of the close ties of the intelligence agencies in the region with the Khurasan fraction of Daesh.

The statement reads, Abdullah Orakzai aka Aslam Farooqi comes from Akhondzadgan village of Orakzai agency, Pakistan. He has previously worked as the military head of the group in Peshawar, commander of Daesh in Abdulkhil valley of Achin district, Nangarhar, and Daesh chief of operations in Khaiber agency. After Abu Saeed Bajawari was killed, he took over as Daesh shadow governor for Afghanistan.

He has had close ties with other terrorist networks such as, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Haqqani - the ties that have now grown deeper into various levels of Daesh’s Khurasan fraction, the statement adds.

It further reveals that Qari Zahid aka Ma’az as Daesh military chief in Afghanistan and Saifullah aka Abu Talha Pakistani as chief of recruitment had been active in different activities of the group in eastern Nangarhar province.

The NDS promises to share further details of Farooqi’s investigation with the people of Afghanistan in the near future.