US says conducted drone strike on Daesh after deadly Kabul attack

The US military says it has carried out a drone strike against a Daesh “planner” in the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar, a day after a bombing attack claimed by the terrorist group killed 13 American troops and scores of Afghan civilians at Kabul airport.

US Central Command said on Friday that the drone strike took place in Nangarhar Province, east of the capital Kabul and bordering Pakistan.

"Initial indications are that we killed the target. We know of no civilian casualties," a US military statement said, falling short of providing further details whether the target was connected with the deadly airport attack on Thursday.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a US official said the strike was against a member of the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group planning future attacks in the war-torn country.

The official said the reaper drone struck the terrorist while he was in a car with an associate, and that both are believed to have been killed.

The Thursday’s attack on Kabul airport claimed by Daesh killed at least 180 people, including 13 US service members — the deadliest for American forces in Afghanistan in over a decade.

The attack took place as Afghans and foreign nationals were awaiting evacuation flights, two weeks after the hasty withdrawal of American forces and the ensuing takeover of the country by the Taliban militant group.

US President Joe Biden said the United States would hunt down those responsible for the deadly assault, adding that he had ordered the Pentagon to come up with plans to strike at the perpetrators.

"We will not forgive, we will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay," Biden said in remarks at the White House on Thursday, ordering flags at the White House and public buildings around the country to be lowered to half-staff.

Biden underlined that he had given orders to prepare strikes on Daesh "assets, leadership and terrorists."

Reacting to Biden’s comments, spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova raised the question whether the US is aware of the location of leadership and facilities of Daesh following the deadly attacks near the Kabul airport.

"So, the US knew where the ISIS (Daesh) leadership and facilities were?!" Zakharova wrote on her Telegram channel.

During a press briefing last month, Zakharova revealed collaboration in Afghanistan between US and NATO forces and Daesh terrorists, specifically pointing to the use of unmarked supply helicopters in Daesh-infiltrated areas where the country’s air space remains under the complete control of the US-led forces.

Daesh began establishing a presence in Afghanistan almost a year after making sweeping land grabs in Iraq and Syria in 2014.

Former President Hamid Karzai was the most ranking Afghan official to announce first that the US was colluding with Daesh in Afghanistan and allowing the Takfiri group to flourish in the war-stricken country.

In a televised speech on Friday, the secretary-general of Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement pointed to former US President Donald Trump’s repeated assertion that Daesh had been created by Hillary Clinton and former American President Barack Obama.

Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah also emphasized that Daesh has ended its mission in Iraq and Syria and now has been brought to Afghanistan by the US.

MG