WASHINGTON (Reuters): The United States launched a drone strike against an Islamic State attack planner in eastern Afghanistan.
The US has killed an Islamic State “planner” in retaliation for Thursday’s suicide bombing in Kabul. Captain Bill Urban, spokesman for US Central Command, said the US military had conducted a drone strike against an Islamic State member in Afghanistan’s Nangahar Province.
The strike killed one person and there were no known civilian casualties, he said. The move was in retaliation for a devastating suicide bombing by Islamic State offshoot ISIS-K, which killed more than 160 Afghans and 13 military personnel, along with two Britons.
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It is not clear whether the planner killed by the US had been involved in Thursday’s attack near the city’s airport, where thousands of people had been trying to reach evacuation flights to escape the incoming Taliban regime.
Friday’s airstrike goes some way to fulfilling a promise made by US President Joe Biden to retaliate against those behind the airport attack. In a message to the perpetrators on Thursday evening, he had said: “We will hunt you down and make you pay.”
