The Taliban have destroyed an Islamic State hideout in the north of Kabul, following a blast in the city centre

In a prolonged assault in which broke the calm and peace in a normally quiet stretch of Kabul, the Taliban government late on Sunday destroyed an Islamic State cell, with gunfire and explosions heard from hours.

Afghanistan’s economy is close to collapse and large areas of the country remain in danger of terror attacks.

The presence of an apparently well-armed militant cell in Kabul underlined the daunting scale of the challenge facing the new government.

The Taliban operation came after a bomb attack near a mosque in Kabul earlier on Sunday that was later claimed by Islamic State

The IS inflicted blast killed and wounded a number of civilians in what appeared to be the worst attack in the Afghan capital since the withdrawal of American forces at the end of August.

The local affiliate of Islamic State, known as ISIS-Khorasan after an ancient name for the region, has already claimed to have carried out attacks on Taliban targets and remains unreconciled to the Afghan Islamist movement.

A Taliban government spokesperson stated that a special unit within the Taliban carried out an operation against ISIS in Kabul’s 17th district, in the city’s north which resulted in the destroying of the ISIS base and killing all of those who had been inside it.