"Allahu akbar!" - Taliban and ISIS strike Armpitistan again

According to reports coming in on the Mojo wire, the Muslim civil war has entered the summer rerun season. As reported here, cries of "Allahu akbar!" were heard last weekend in Kabul and other places in Afghanistan. Scores were killed, scores more wounded as the Taliban and ISIS slaughtered Shia Muslims who were trying to register to vote in upcoming elections.

Today there's news -- possibly last week's bulletin copied and pasted -- of a bomb blast inside a mosque in the eastern Afghan city of Khost [If it had been a pilgrimage site it would have been called "Holy Khost". Ed.] which was being used as a voter registration center.  The provincial head of public health [sic] said  his department had counted 14 killed and 33 wounded... so far.

No-one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but both the Taliban and a local ISIS affiliate have targeted voting centres in the past. Like last week, when the massacre in Kabul accounted for 60 dead and at least 130 wounded. Undeterred, the alleged government of the shithole countryAfghanistan plans to hold elections -- the first since 2014 -- this coming October.

Elsewhere in Afghanistan, a vehicle carrying shopkeepers on their way to a market struck an IED (read: roadside bomb) in northern Faryab province, where both the Taliban and ISIS are active. Inspector Mohammed Mohammed of the local constabulary says seven businessmen had gone to Paradise, and another is in Allah's waiting room.

But wait (as Vince Offer used to say), there's more. In the eastern province of Paktia, a car bomb killed two people and wounded another three. Abdullah Hsart, a spokesthingy for Mohammed Mohammed, the provincial governor, said the attack late Saturday targeted Hazart Mohammad Rodwal, a district chief, who was among the wounded. The Taliban responsibility for this one.

Walt has no further snide comments to make, but reminds readers that 1000s of American soldiers are still "in station" (as the Brits say), but only in training and advisory roads, not in harm's way... or so the Pentagon and the State Department would have you believe. Ha!

Further reading: "Kidnapped Sex Slaves Help Islamic State Gain Turf in Afghanistan", by Eltaf Najafizada, Bloomberg News, 3/5/18.