“It would be too big a price to pay for any Pakistani group to join a group that the Afghan Taliban have outright rejected”, said the Pakistani police official.
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On Friday, the Afghan media said that Taliban had released the crew of the Pakistani helicopter.
Trowbridge’s statement said Khan had been known to “directly participate in attacks against U.S. and coalition forces, and the actions of his network terrorized Afghans, especially in Nangarhar”.
Reports have confirm that all six crew members of a Punjab government helicopter that crashed in Afghanistan last week have been released and will be arriving in Islamabad today.
Pentagon deputy press secretary Gordon Trowbridge said the strike came while U.S. and Afghan special operations forces carried out counter-IS operations in southern Nangarhar province throughout July.
Afghan forces, backed by the American military, killed an estimated 300 Islamic State fighters in an operation mounted two weeks ago, the top US and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation commander in Afghanistan said on Wednesday, calling it a severe blow to the group. Pentagon spokesperson Trowbridge later confirmed the news, but corrected that the target was taken down in the Achin district, instead of Kot.
Khan was declared a terrorist by the State Department past year, dubbing him the IS head of the “Khorasan province”.
News of his death comes after former Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour was killed in another US drone strike inside Pakistan in May.
The authorities in Pakistan said the helicopter was on its way to Russsia for fix works when it crash-landed in the restive Logar province of Afghanistan.
The Taliban and IS are rivals and often clash.
“Once government forces leave, we fear Daesh will return and resume their operations”, he added. A Pakistani Taliban faction also claimed responsibility.
He was killed in the southern Nangarhar province on July 26, “a hotbed for ISIL-Khorasan activity since the summer of 2015” the Pentagon said in a statement on Friday, using an alternative acronym for the group.
Most NATO counter-terrorism troops have left Afghanistan, with the Afghan local forces now handling security.
Reuters reports that between January and early August of this year, USA warplanes carried out nearly 140 airstrikes against IS targets in Afghanistan. Recent estimates indicate around only half the number of IS militants to exist in the region, thanks to the air and ground operations from security forces.
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Obama authorizes drone strike in January.
