The reputed head of Islamic State’s Afghanistan branch, Hafiz Saeed, was killed by an American airstrike in eastern Afghanistan’s Nangharhar province near the Pakistan border, Afghan officials confirmed Friday.
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Khan was known to participate in attacks against United States and coalition forces, with his leadership in ISIS resulting in terrorizing Afghans in the Nangarhar province of Afghanistan.
“Khan’s death affects ISIL-K (the Pentagon’s acronym for IS’s Afghanistan branch) recruiting efforts and will disrupt ISIL-K’s operations in Afghanistan and the region”, he added.
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. Gen. Charles Cleveland, said no evidence had been seen by USA military intelligence to support the reports of an Islamic State presence in Zabul, despite the accounts of Afghan officials.
The leader of Daesh’s branch in Afghanistan and Pakistan has been reportedly killed in a United States drone strike in Afghanistan, according to the Pentagon, Press TV reported.
Afghan intelligence and American military officials had previously believed Saeed was one of 30 Islamic State insurgents killed in a July 2015 US airstrike in Achin district in Nangharhar.
The U.S. 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.
Afghanistan’s ambassador to Pakistan, Dr. Omar Zakhilwal, earlier said Khan was killed in a drone strike.
The Pakistani military campaign also caused around 400 families loyal to the Islamic State group to flee to Afghanistan, Afghan authorities said.
Besides a number of other terrorist attacks, ISIS had recently claimed responsibility for the July 23 attack in Kabul in which more than 80 people were killed.
That operation was considered the most significant United States raid inside Pakistan since al-Qaeda’s leader, Osama bin Laden, was killed in 2011.
“The Mi-17 transport helicopter crashed in the Azra district, in the restive province of Logar, then caught fire, said the provincial governor’s spokesperson Salim Saleh”.
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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.
