US says it killed Isis-K ‘planner’ in reprisal strike after deadly Kabul attack
The US military has said it believes it killed an Isis-K ‘planner’ in its first reprisal strike in Afghanistan after the deadly Kabul attack that killed at least 170 people, including 13 US military personnel.
Approximately 36 hours after the suicide bomb attack at Kabul left hundreds dead or wounded and Joe Biden vowed to hunt down those responsible, the US said an unmanned drone had been dispatched to attack a suspected member of ISIS’ Afghanistan branch, which it described as a “planner”.
It did not say whether the individual was believed linked specifically to the attack on Thursday at Hamid Karzai International Airport.
However, the US military said it believed the mission to kill the militant had been successful.
“US military forces conducted an over-the-horizon counterterrorism operation today against an Isis-K planner,” Capt Bill Urban, a spokesman for the US Central Command said in a statement, referring to the Afghanistan-baed Isis franchise that claimed responsibility for Thursday’s attack.
“The unmanned airstrike occurred in the Nangahar province of Afghanistan.”
He added: “Initial indications are that we killed the target. We know of no civilian casualties.”
On Thursday, Mr Biden insisted the US would continue its evacuation mission, even as the nation mourned the service members killed, along with the Afghans killed and wounded. More than 110,000 people have been flown out since the Taliban seized control of the country on August 15.
“We will respond with force and precision at our time, at the place of our choosing,” Mr Biden said. “These Isis terrorists will not win. We will rescue the Americans; we will get our Afghan allies out, and our mission will go on. America will not be intimidated.”
He said military commanders in Afghanistan had told him it was important to complete the evacuation mission. “And we will,” he said. “We will not be deterred by terrorists.”
CENTCOM Statement on Counterterrorism Strikehttps://t.co/L3UgtvPa6k
— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) August 28, 2021
There had been questions about how the US would manage to launch such a strike given it was giving up its military presence in the country. The answer appears to have come quickly, in what was termed an over-the-horizon operation, potentially launched from outside of Afghanistan itself.
While Barack Obama used hundreds of unmanned drones to target alleged militants in Pakistan and Afghanistan, critics say the US’s claims that civilians are rarely killed is not true.
Indeed, verifying not only correct targets, but also the outcome of such strikes is notoriously difficult in hard-to-reach regions.
Additional reporting by Associated Press
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