MOSCOW, July 20. /TASS/. Russia has received information about cooperation between the US-led foreign contingent and the Islamic State (IS) terror group (outlawed in Russia) in Afghanistan, Russian Special Presidential Envoy for Afghanistan and Director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Second Asian Department Zamir Kabulov said on Tuesday at an online discussion of the Valdai international discussion club.
"I am sure that there was such interaction, we started talking about it for good reason. We began to receive very specific information about such facts of cooperation," he said. "We received it from local Afghans, including leaders at the local level, who did not understand why helicopters were supplying weapons and ammunition to the areas captured by IS units."
According to Kabulov, this is not the only occurrence. He recalled a case when the Taliban group (outlawed in Russia) had blocked a large IS unit in northern Afghanistan. "Those IS fighters were transported by helicopters in an unknown direction, as it looked initially, but then to the area of Bagram Airbase, and then they disappeared somewhere. One can recall a lot of such incidents, and when you do that, the conclusion is unambiguous," the diplomat added.