KABUL, Afghanistan — The top Islamic State leader in Afghanistan and Pakistan has been killed in a suspected U.S. drone strike in eastern Afghanistan, Afghan intelligence officials said Saturday, the latest in a series of American air assaults against militants in recent days.
This is not the first time Hafiz Saeed Khan — a former Pakistani Taliban commander who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in January — has been reported killed. If true, it could represent a major blow to the radical Syria-and-Iraq based Islamists’ ambitions of establishing a strong presence in Afghanistan and Pakistan, an area they call Khorasan.
Khan, who is from the Orakzai tribe in Pakistan, was killed Friday in the Achin district of Nangahar Province, said Asib Sediqqi, a spokesman for the National Directorate of Security, Afghanistan’s intelligence agency.
“Hafiz Saeed was killed in a gathering, an area where they were making plans,” said Sediqqi, adding that the agency’s operatives provided American commanders with the intelligence to launch the airstrike.
The corpse was retrieved and identified as Khan before Afghan officials reported his death, Sediqqi said. At least 30 other insurgents were killed in the airstrike, he added.
Two other senior Islamic State leaders were also killed earlier this week in Nangahar by U.S. airstrikes, according to Afghan intelligence officials: Shahidullah Shahid, who is thought to have been the group’s chief spokesman in the country, and Gull Zaman, believed to be the deputy head of the Islamic State’s Khorasan branch.
The Islamic State has not confirmed any of the deaths.
A U.S. military spokesman said there was a U.S. airstrike on Achin district Friday targeting individuals that posed a threat to U.S. and Afghan forces. But the spokesman did not confirm whether or not Khan’s died in the attack.
On social media Saturday, there were conflicting reports of Khan’s fate. Abu Talut Al-Khorasani, who described himself as a former Taliban commander who has defected to the Islamic State, claimed in a tweet that Khan “is alive and well” and branded that Afghan intelligence agency’s claims as propaganda. But the agency’s chief, Rahmatullah Nabil, also took to Twitter and insisted that Khan had been killed.
For the past two weeks, a joint U.S.-Afghan military operation has been unfolding in Nangahar, where the Islamic State has made the deepest inroads, according to Afghan officials. Provincial officials and tribal elders report numerous drone strikes in Achin and other districts, underscoring the growing American concern for the rise of the Islamic State at a time when most U.S. and international forces have departed.
Since January, when the Islamic State announced the creation of its Khorasan wing, numerous Taliban have defected. In several districts the Taliban are now engaged in clashes with the Islamic State, which has seized several areas.
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