ISIS takes responsibility for attack on a prison in Afghanistan. UPDATED

The flag of ISIS.

ISIS has taken responsibility for an attack on a prison in Afghanistan. AP. The attack involved a suicide car bomb and several gunmen and left three people dead and 24 injured. The attack occurred in Jalalabad and the casualty figures are expected to rise. The attack comes as a cease fire between the Taliban and the Afghan government was put into effect and a day after a senior ISIS commander was killed by Afghan special forces. Violence has been increasing in Afghanistan lately with the vast majority of attacks coming from ISIS. ISIS still has around 2,000 troops in the country and though they are losing ground they are still more than capable of launching attacks. 

UPDATE: Fox News is reporting that 21 people have died and 43 have been wounded with more casualties expected. Three attackers have also been killed. ISIS fighters fled the prison and are thought to be hiding out in the surrounding residential areas. Prisoners have escaped during the fighting and that is suspected to be the motive for the attack as several hundred ISIS fighters are held in the city.

My Comment:

Not often we hear about ISIS these days. Outside of Afghanistan they are an afterthought and they haven't had a major attack on a Western target in a long time. One thing that President Trump doesn't get credit for is the fact that he was able to destroy ISIS as a major force and push them out of Iraq and Syria. 

It does seem that Afghanistan might be turning a corner. The Taliban and the Afghan government do seem to be making progress with the peace deal and are honoring a cease fire. It almost seems possible that peace could break out and we could finally get our troops out. 

Unfortunately ISIS still hangs on. They are not much of a fighting force but they are just big enough to launch attacks and kill people. Indeed, they even have enough people to launch suicide attacks, which doesn't make much sense for a group that is low on members. 

The big fear is that if a peace deal is made that the Taliban will shelter ISIS. They did so with al-Qaeda back in the day and if they did again ISIS could make a resurgence. However, I don't think this fear is valid. ISIS has attacked the Taliban as well and they have killed quite a few of each other. And amazingly enough the depravity of ISIS is notable enough that even the Taliban hates them for it. 

I wouldn't be to disappointed if we took more active action against ISIS in Afghanistan. Though we should be pulling troops out, I don't have a problem with bombing the hell out of what is left of ISIS. There's only 2000 fighters left and it would be nice to see all of them gone.

With the new information I do think this attack makes sense. ISIS is clearly in need of fighters and the ones held in the prison come already trained and battle hardened. Even if the attack only released a few of them it could mean that they have more fighters for further attacks. And given how many casualties they inflicted it seems like this attack was worth the price they paid, at least in the short term.