“Officials say Khan was killed by a drone strike in Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar Province, where most Islamic State fighters are located”.
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It is the second US killing of a prominent militant in the region in months.
White House officials in June gave administration’s tacit approval to allow USA commanders in Afghanistan to conduct offensive airstrikes against the Taliban, the Islamic State and other insurgent groups and to let American troops restart joint ground operations with Afghan forces.
Despite that, Afghanistan’s 15-year-old war grinds on with no clear victory in sight.
Nangarhar province has been a hotbed for ISIL-Khorasan activity since the summer of 2015, the deputy press secretary noted.
Saeed was the head of IS’s “Khorasan province”, including Afghanistan, Pakistan and parts of neighbouring countries.
The ISIS group has also claimed responsibility for a July 23 attack in Kabul that killed dozens of people and left hundreds maimed.
However, this is not the first time Khan has been reported dead.
Khan was also reported to have been killed in a drone strike in January of previous year.
“During this time, USA forces conducted an airstrike targeting Hafiz Saeed Khan, the Islamic State [also referred to as Daesh] in the Levant-Khorasan emir, in Achin district, Nangarhar province July 26, resulting in his death”, Trowbridge said.
Reuters quotes Afghanistan’s Ambassador to Pakistan Omar Zakhilwal as saying that Afghan security forces confirmed that Khan was killed along with his senior commanders on July 26. Trowbridge said the airstrike was in Achin district, as opposed to Kot district.
If confirmed, Saeed will be the third top-tier Islamic State leader to have been killed in eastern Afghanistan since US and Afghan forces began targeting the group’s commanders last summer.
The Taliban militants have released the crew of a Pakistani helicopter which crash-landed in central Logar province of Afghanistan earlier this month. The Taliban reject al-Baghdadi as leader of an envisioned worldwide caliphate.
A statement by Presidential Palace said the Civil Aviation Authority of Afghanistan only granted permission for the helicopter to use the Afghan airspace after recording the specifications of the helicopter.
Between January and early August, American warplanes conducted almost 140 air strikes against Islamic State targets in Afghanistan, according to the US military.
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“We think we’ve reduced their numbers fairly significantly in the last six months”, Gen. John Nicholson, the top USA military commander in Afghanistan, told Pentagon reporters in a video briefing two weeks ago.
