IS leaders killed in drone strike

PESHAWAR: Two senior Pakistani militants who had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) were among at least 24 people killed in a US drone strike in eastern Afghanistan on Monday, Pakistani and Afghan security officials said on Thursday.

Afghan officials described one of the men, Gul Zaman, as the deputy leader of the IS in Afghanistan. The other commander, Shahidullah Shahid, had been the main spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban until he joined the IS last year.

Though officials do not yet consider the IS to be a major threat in either Pakistan or Afghanistan, the group has drawn increased support from disaffected Taliban militants on both sides of the border over the past year.

A senior Pakistani official in Peshawar said both men had been killed alongside several other militants in a US drone strike in Nangarhar province, in eastern Afghanistan, on Monday. The official said the drone strike had targeted a leadership council meeting of the so-called IS in Khorasan, an old term that includes Pakistan and Afghanistan.

A spokesman for the Afghan intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security, confirmed the deaths in a public statement. The total toll from the strike was unclear, with Afghan reports ranging from 24 to 45 deaths.

Shahid announced his allegiance to the IS after the Pakistani military began an offensive last year in the North Waziristan tribal region, which had long been a safe haven for the militants in northwestern Pakistan.

That offensive, and a parallel operation in the Tirah Valley in Khyber tribal agency, forced many militants to flee across the border into Afghanistan.

Gul Zaman, also known as Mullah Fateh, had been second-in-command to the regional head of IS, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed. It was not clear whether Mr Saeed was present at the meeting, the Pakistani official said.

“It was a pretty massive hit,” said the Pakistani official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity and said he was citing sources inside Afghanistan. “So many IS fighters and commanders have been killed in one go.”

The official said that Pakistani Taliban fighters based inside Afghanistan had retrieved the bodies from the wreckage of the targeted building.