ISIS CHIEF DEAD – The head of ISIS in Afghanistan has been killed in a raid by a unit of elite commandos, the country’s president has announced.
Abdul Hasib died in the operation led by Afghan special forces in the eastern province of Nangarhar, President Ashraf Ghani revealed today.
Hasib, appointed last year after his predecessor Hafiz Saeed Khan died in a US drone strike, is believed to have ordered a series of high profile attacks.
An atrocity at a hospital in Kabul carried out by a group of militants disguised as doctors is among those the terror boss is thought to have been behind.
Last month, a Pentagon spokesman said Hasib had probably been killed during a raid by US and Afghan special forces in the same region, but there was no confirmation.
Two US servicemen were killed in the operation.
ISIS’s local affiliate, sometimes known as Islamic State Khorasan (IS-K), after an old name for the region that includes Afghanistan, has been active since 2015 – fighting the Taliban as well as Afghan and US forces.
It is believed to maintain links with the main ISIS group in Iraq and Syria but operates independently.
US and Afghan special forces, backed by drone strikes and other air support, have waged a series of operations against IS-K this year, killing dozens of their fighters – mainly in the Nangarhar region, on the Pakistani border.
Defeating the group remains one of the top American priorities in Afghanistan.
Last month the US dropped its largest non-nuclear bomb – dubbed the “mother of all bombs” – on a network of caves and tunnels used by ISIS in Nangarhar.
The air raid killed a total of 94 fighters, including four top commanders.
