The Mother of All Bombs attack by the United States in Afghanistan killed 13 Daesh fighters from India. The bomb attack was carried out in Nangarhar province of Afghanistan last week. The estimated death toll amounted to 96 people, according to local officials.
New Delhi (Sputnik) – Out of 13 Daesh terrorists from India, five came from the southern state of Kerala, a report by Afghan news agency Pajhowk Afghan News said. Among them, two were Daesh commanders Mohammad and Allah Gupta, the agency said.
The Indian Home Ministry, however, couldn't confirm the death of Indian nationals in the strike.
“We are ascertaining facts but so far, we don’t have any credible information about the death of 13 Indian Daesh terrorists in the US bomb strike in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province,” a senior Home Ministry official, who wished to remain anonymous, told Sputnik.
In 2016, 22 youths from Kerala fled to Afghanistan to join Daesh and reportedly reached Nangarhar province.
India's National Investigation Agency (NIA) has been closely watching the activities of the 22 Kerala individuals ever since they left India, maintaining contact with their families and seeking help from Interpol.
“Daesh has one of the largest training camps in Nangarhar province in Afghanistan. In fact, after Syria, Nangarhar province is emerging as the largest base of Daesh. According to the intelligence inputs, there is every possibility that the Kerala youths who left India last year might have been staying in the caves and tunnels of the Nangarhar province where the US dropped the world’s massive bomb. There are reports also that two Indian Daesh terrorists also died earlier in a drone attack in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region,” security expert Qamar Agha told Sputnik.
On April 13, a 22,000-pound GBU-43, or MOAB bomb, which is the largest non-nuclear bomb in the US military arsenal, was dropped from a C-130 military airlift aircraft, targeting an underground complex and tunnels in Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar province commonly believed to be used by Daesh.
This story first appeared on Sputnik & is reposted here with permission.