Ghani says Daesh threatens security of whole region

NEW DELHI (NNI): Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has said that Daesh or the Islamic State has posed threats to the whole region.

Addressing a group of Indian and Afghan journalists in New Delhi warned that Daesh was worse than al-Qaeda.

Highlighting impacts of the military operation conducted by Pakistani military forces in Waziristan, Ghani said that the operation had displaced hundreds of militants which has impacted the security situation in Afghanistan.

Ghani stressed the fact that instability in Afghanistan will destabilize the whole region – adding that Daesh was in fact a major threat to world peace and stability.

He said: “With all apologies to Microsoft, if al-Qaeda was Windows One, Daesh is Windows Five. Terrorism is fast changing its ecology and morphology and its communication strategies.”

“Why is this happening? Because state collapse enables these movements to seek spaces. Al-Qaeda did not have territorial space, Daesh acquired territorial space very quickly. The control of funding it enjoys is unprecedented in terms of a terrorist movement, opposition movement but there is a pattern – four phases: its called observe, orient, decide and act. It’s called OODA,” Ghani said in reference to the OODA loop which was developed by a military strategist who applied the concept to the combat operations process, often at the strategic level in military operations. It is now also often applied to understand commercial operations and learning processes.

In terms of economic capacities, Ghani said that Afghanistan had great potential to leverage economic and commercial ties with the regional nations particularly with India.

He said that India was one of the five circles explained in Afghanistan’s foreign policy. He said that during the visit, various issues particularly that pertaining to equipment of Afghanistan National Security Forces (ANSF) was raised with the Indian officials. NNI