All news

Number of militants in Afghanistan up to 50,000 people — Russian General Staff

The core is the Islamic Movement Taliban with more than 40,000 militants, Russian General Staff head Army General Valery Gerasimov says

MOSCOW, October 8. /TASS/. The number of militants in Afghanistan stands at up to 50,000 people, united into more than 4,000 units and groups, Russian General Staff head Army General Valery Gerasimov said on Thursday.

"There are currently up to 50,000 militants in Afghanistan united into more than 4,000 units and groups of different kinds. The core is the Islamic Movement Taliban with more than 40,000 militants," Gerasimov said at the opening of the international conference on Afghanistan.

Extremists’ active resistance to government forces does not allow official Kabul to stabilized the political and social-economic situation in the country, leads to unjustified casualties and growing refugee flow to neighboring countries and then to Europe, Gerasimov noted.

At the 4th Moscow Conference on International Security in spring, the General Staff head noted that the number of extremist organizations in the world has grown by three times since the 1990s and now stands at around 150,000 people. He stressed that it was not only an increase in numbers adding that organizational forms of terrorism are developing, and they already represent "far-reaching transnational networks and even organizations with features of a state."