The commander of U.S. Central Command on Wednesday pushed back against reports that Islamic State fighters were being treated like “honored guests” by the Afghan government.
An ISIS commander and about 250 of his fighters who surrendered last week to authorities in northern Afghanistan have been moved to government detention facilities and will be investigated for any war crimes, Gen. Joseph Votel said during a press briefing at the Pentagon.
The fighters with the ISIS-Khorasan branch of the terror group had been put in guest houses in the provincial capital, given guards to protect them from the Taliban, and allowed to keep cell phones and keep up outside communications, the New York Times reported.
“The government of Afghanistan has assured us that these ISIS-K fighters will be treated as war prisoners,” Votel said.
Votel said the Afghan government admitted it could have handled the situation in a better way and that both President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah have pledged that ISIS prisoners will face justice. They have been accused of executions and rapes by local Afghans.
The surrender of the fighters comes as ISIS has gained a tentative foothold in Afghanistan, waged battles against the Taliban, and staged deadly terrorist bombings in an apparent effort to derail President Trump’s strategy of a negotiated peace in the war-torn country.
Votel said the president’s strategy aims to reconcile with the Taliban, which as fought the U.S. for nearly 17 years, but the Pentagon is bent on eliminating ISIS members, which have shifted back and forth between the two groups.
“We have killed numerous ISIS-K fighters this year and as you may remember we continued our operations against them and other terrorist organizations like al Qaeda during the recent Eid ceasefire between the government of Afghanistan and the Taliban,” Votel said.
