The Afghan Intelligence, National Directorate of Security (NDS) forces have foiled the militants bid to carry out a series of explosions in Jalalabd city, the provincial capital of Nangarhar province.
The provincial government media office in a statement said the NDS forces stormed a hideout of the Taliban group in Surkh Rod district and destroyed ten Improvised Explosive Devices.
Citing the information received by the NDS forces, the provincial government further added that the militants were looking to use the Improvised Explosive Devices in a string of explosions in Jalalabd city.
The statement by the provincial government also added that operations are underway to arrest the militants involved in the attack plan.
Taliban and other militants often use IED as the weapon of their choice to target the security forces and government but in majority of such attacks ordinary civilians are targeted, besides such attacks often claims the lives of the militants as well.
The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) in its latest report stated that 1,692 civilians were killed in the first six months of 2018.
According to UNAMA, the use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in attacks by Anti-Government Elements remained the leading cause of civilian casualties.
“The combined use of suicide and non-suicide IEDs caused nearly half of all civilian casualties. Continuing trends first documented last year by UNAMA, the majority of IED casualties were caused by suicide and complex attacks, which again were responsible for record high civilian casualties, resulting in 1,413 civilian casualties (427 deaths and 986 injured), a 22 per cent increase,” UNAMA said.
