https://news.vice.com/article/the-taliban-tells-the-islamic-state-to-get-the-hell-out-of-afghanistanThe latest salvo in the battle for extremist allegiance between the Taliban and the Islamic State (IS) arrived today in the form of a strongly worded letter. In cautioning IS to back off in Afghanistan, the Taliban wrote that if the two militant groups were to become rivals in the country, decades of fighting foreign powers and the Afghan government could be undone. "Jihad against the American invaders and its puppets should be carried out under a single flag, a single leadership, and a single order," read the letter signed by deputy Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour and addressed to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and his followers. The letter, which was released Tuesday in several languages, told Baghdadi that he shouldn't "from far away make such decisions" that would threaten the integrity of the "Islamic Emirate," a term the Taliban uses to refer to its territory. The Taliban further threatened to "show its reaction against" the Islamic State should it not heed the Taliban's words.
