Afghan president confirms ISIS leader killed in April raid

KABUL, Afghanistan — The leader of the Islamic State group affiliate in Afghanistan who orchestrated audacious attacks that further upended the country’s deteriorating security situation was killed in a special operations forces raid in April, the president of Afghanistan said in a statement on Sunday.

The militant leader, Abdul Hasib, had overseen attacks that challenged the authority of President Ashraf Ghani, including a massacre at an Afghan army hospital in Kabul that killed at least 50 people.

Hasib was killed in an operation April 27 in eastern Nangarhar province, along the border with Pakistan, according to the statement by Ghani’s office. The statement said the government had waited for verification that Hasib had been killed in the raid before announcing his death. It did not say how his death had been confirmed.

The U.S. military command in Afghanistan said in a statement Sunday that U.S. forces had participated in the raid that killed Hasib and up to 35 other militants.

It was the second time in nine months that the leader of the Islamic State in the Khorasan, as the Afghanistan affiliate is known, was killed, Gen. John Nicholson, the commander of U.S. forces in the country, said in the statement. Hasib’s predecessor, Hafiz Saeed Khan, was killed in July in a U.S. airstrike.

The U.S. military command in Afghanistan had said that an operation on April 27 had targeted Hasib.

Two U.S. Army Rangers, Sgt. Joshua Rodgers and Sgt. Cameron Thomas, were killed in the operation, perhaps by friendly fire, the Pentagon has said.