The Atlantic

ISIS in Afghanistan Is Like a Balloon That Won't Pop

Thursday’s fatal attack in Kabul highlights the group’s resilience.
Source: Omar Sobhani / Reuters

ISIS should have been eliminated in Afghanistan. That’s what Americans will tell you, anyway.

In April, the U.S. military that only about 700 ISIS fighters remained in the country and then proceeded to the “mother of all bombs,” one of the largest non-nuclear devices, against an ISIS facility in Afghanistan. Three months later, the U.S. military said it had killed Abu Sayed, the head of ISIS-Khorasan, as the group is known in the

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