Islamic State branch leader killed in Afghanistan, Pentagon says
The leader of the Islamic State branch that operates in Afghanistan and Pakistan was killed in a U.S. air strike last month in eastern Afghanistan, the Pentagon said Friday.
The attack of the Islamic State branch leader, Hafiz Saeed Khan, was part of an operation by U.S. and Afghan forces in Nangarhar province, which borders Pakistan and is regarded as a hotbed of jihadi groups, Gordon Trowbridge, a deputy spokesman at the Defense Department, said in a statement.
Khan, a former member of the Pakistani Taliban, had been the commander of the Islamic State in the Khorasan, an ancient name for the region that includes Afghanistan and Pakistan.