Hizb-e-Islami Afghanistan denies joining Islamic State

'News reports that Hizb-e-Islami could join Islamic State are outrageous and totally baseless,' says HIA spokesperson

ISLAMABAD:
Hizb-e-Islami Afghanistan (HIA), led by former Prime Minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, on Wednesday dismissed media reports about it considering to join the Islamic State (IS) as completely false.

The BBC had quoted a purported Hizb-e-Islami commander, Mirwais as claiming that the group has “links with some Daish members” and the leadership will announce their allegiance to them.

The Hizb-e-Islami spokesperson Haroon Zarghoon categorically rejected the reports and said that neither he nor anyone else in the group recognize the so-called commander who has made the claim.

“The news reports that Hizb-e-Islami could join the Islamic State are outrageous and totally baseless. I categorically reject it,” Zarghoon told The Express Tribune from an undisclosed location by phone.


He also denied any links with a pamphlet, seeking support for the IS, distributed in the border regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan, in Peshawar district as well as in Afghan refugee camps. The 12-page versions of the pamphlet in Pasto and Dari languages have been sent to Afghan journalists in Peshawar.

He said Hizb-e-Islami recognize the fact that the Islamic State has emerged as the result of “anti-Muslim policies of the United States and their brutalities against Muslims in Iraq and other Islamic countries.”

Hizb-e-Islami chief Hekmatyar in a recent article touched on the IS issue and said it was a reaction to the “brutalities against Sunnis in Iraq at the behest of the Americans.”

“The IS state is gaining momentum as the US has continued its anti-Muslim policies,” Hekmatyar said in his article published in Hizb’s Daily Shahadat.
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