Taliban Reports Arrest of Suspects in the Murder of Three Foreign Tourists in Afghanistan

The Taliban government announced that several members of the local branch of the Islamic State group, known as ISIS, have been arrested on suspicion of involvement in the murder of three foreign tourists in May in Bamiyan province and an attack in September on Taliban judicial staff in Kabul. Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban spokesperson, wrote on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter) on Monday, October 1, without disclosing the identities of the suspects, that a citizen of Tajikistan is among those arrested for suspected membership in the ISIS Khorasan branch. The spokesperson claimed that this Tajik citizen had come from Pakistan to Afghanistan to carry out armed attacks. He added, without providing evidence, that ISIS Khorasan militants are hiding with the support of security and intelligence organizations in the provinces of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan. The Pakistani government has denied previous accusations of harboring militant groups opposed to the Taliban. Three Spanish tourists and three Afghans were killed in a shooting in Bamiyan. Mujahid also claimed that the Taliban has been able to expel ISIS Khorasan militants from their previous bases in Afghanistan through military operations. The attack on September 13 on employees of the Supreme Office for Supervision and Implementation of Orders, which replaced the Attorney General's Office in the former Afghan government, reportedly left six dead and 13 injured, according to Taliban officials. However, the Afghan Prosecutors Association stated that at least 16 prosecutors were killed in the attack. According to the Taliban, in the attack on May 17 in a market in Bamiyan province, three foreign tourists and one Afghan citizen were killed, and seven others were injured. However, an anonymous source within the Taliban told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's Afghan service that the death toll from this attack was eight. Radio Free Europe cannot verify this figure. The Spanish government confirmed a few days after the attack that several of its citizens had been 'murdered.' At the same time, reports emerged indicating that tourists from Australia, Norway, and Lithuania were injured in the attack. The Taliban announced at that time that four suspects had been arrested at the attack site. Despite the destruction of two large sixth-century Buddha statues in Bamiyan during the previous Taliban regime in 2001, this province remains an important tourist attraction in central Afghanistan.