Both the Pakistani Taliban and IS jihadists have claimed responsibility for a horrific suicide bombing on Monday at a hospital in Pakistan which killed 73 people.
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The US military says the group’s nascent presence in Afghanistan has dwindled, with fighters largely confined to two or three districts in Nangarhar from around nine in January.
They were targeted by a USA -backed Afghan military offensive last month that included American and Afghan special operations forces.
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”.
Details of the strike were not immediately available, but a USA official told the BBC that Saeed was killed by drone.
The Taliban’s various factions in Afghanistan and Pakistan as well as their al Qaeda allies are bitter rivals of Islamic State’s al-Baghdadi.
And seven people – including two foreign ambassadors – died in May past year when an MI-17 army helicopter crashed at a holiday resort in the hills of Gilgit.
The NATO-led coalition estimates there are around 1,500 IS militants in Afghanistan – mostly disaffected Pakistani and Afghan Taliban, as well as Uzbek militants and local residents of Nangarhar.
Al Jazeera’s Jennifer Glasse, reporting from Kabul on Saturday, said the drone strike was part of a wider operation against ISIL in Nangarhar that has killed almost 300 fighters, including some of the group’s leadership. Pentagon spokesperson Trowbridge later confirmed the news, but corrected that the target was taken down in the Achin district, instead of Kot.
It was not immediately clear what brought down the chopper in a Taliban-controlled area of Afghanistan’s Logar province.
Saeed Khan was erroneously declared dead by Afghan authorities in July a year ago.
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A United States defence official confirmed to Reuters that the July 26 drone strike killed Saeed. 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. The latest killing of their top leader, something which they have denied, is sure to be an additional blow to their aspirations.
