A key member of Daesh, responsible for recruiting fighters for the group, was arrested in an operation by the National Directorate of Security’s (NDS) Special Unit in Kabul’s PD5, the NDS said in a statement on Saturday. 

The Daesh member, Abu Obaidullah Mutawakil, was a university lecturer and imam at Shaikh Mohammadiha mosque in the south of Kabul, the statement said.

The Daesh member so far had sent hundreds of educated youths to Nangarhar province, in the east of Afghanistan, to join the group, the statement said.

The statement said that at least 16 students of the lecturer, who had joined Daesh, have been arrested from different parts of Kabul on charges of terror acts and they have confessed that they were encouraged by Mutawakil to join the terror outfit.

The NDS says that a nephew of Mutawakil carried out a suicide attack two months ago in Kabul.