U.S. Airstrike Takes Out Top Afghanistan ISIS Leader

A U.S. defense official confirmed on August 12 that Hafiz Sayed Khan, the top leader of ISIS forces in Afghanistan, died on July 26 after a U.S. drone strike took him out.

“U.S. forces conducted an airstrike targeting Hafiz Sayed Khan, the Islamic State in the Levant-Khorasan emir, in Achin district, Nangarhar province July 26, resulting in his death,” Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Gordon Trowbridge said in a statement, according to ABC News.

This is not the first time that Khan has been reported dead – in 2015, Afghan intelligence agents reported that they had killed the former Taliban commander-turned Afghan ISIS leader, although the Pentagon never confirmed it.

Trowbridge explained that U.S. and Afghan special forces targeted ISIS strongholds in the southern Nangarhar province in Afghanistan – which borders Pakistan — over the course of one month, and that it was one of those strikes that ultimately killed Khan.

Khan led the effort “to directly participate in attacks against U.S. and coalition forces, and the actions of his network terrorized Afghans, especially in Nangarhar,” Trowbridge said.

“Khan’s death affects ISIL-K recruiting efforts and will disrupt ISIL-K’s operations in Afghanistan and the region,” he added.

The Pentagon believes that the number of ISIS fighters in eastern Afghanistan has dwindled to between 1,000 and 1,500 — approximately half of what it was at the beginning of 2016. The majority of Afghan ISIS fighters began as members of the Taliban in Pakistan and have since pledged allegiance to the Islamic State.

“We think we’ve reduced their numbers fairly significantly in the last six months,” said Gen. John Nicholson, the top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, in a video briefing.

Though ISIS strongholds in Afghanistan have, for the most part, been restricted to Nangarhar, concerns that ISIS is expanding through the area continue to grow following an attack at a hospital in Quetta, Pakistan, notes the Guardian. Both ISIS and the Pakistani Taliban took credit for the attack that killed at least 74 people.

Sources: ABC News, Guardian / Photo Credit: Day Donaldson/Flickr