IS commander in Afghanistan killed in joint special forces raid
● Logari among several IS leaders killed in attack on compound
The head of the Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan has been killed in a military raid, the Pentagon said.
The death of Abdul Haseeb Logari had been suspected after the 27 April raid on a compound in Nangarhar, a province in eastern Afghanistan.
The Pentagon has now confirmed Logari was among several high-ranking leaders of Islamic State in Afghanistan who died in the raid carried out by Afghan Special Security Forces in partnership with US forces.
Two US Army Rangers died in the 27 April raid. US officials say they may have been killed as the result of friendly fire in the opening minutes of the three-hour battle.
General John Nicholson, the commander of US forces in
Afghanistan, said Logari was the second leader of IS in Afghanistan to be killed in the last nine months.
He said the militants had “waged a barbaric campaign of death, torture and violence against the Afghan people, especially those in southern Nangarhar”.
Logari directed the 8 March attack against Kabul National Military Hospital, which killed or wounded more than 100 people, the Pentagon said.
That month Afghan and US forces launched a counteroffensive in the province.
“I applaud the tremendous skill and courage shown by our Afghan partners,” Gen Nicholson said.
“This fight strengthens our resolve to rid Afghanistan of these terrorists and bring peace and stability to this great country. Any Isis member that comes to Afghanistan will meet the same fate.”
A statement released yesterday from Afghan president Ashraf Ghani’s office also confirmed Logari’s death, adding that he was “responsible for ordering the attack on the military hospital in Kabul took place in March in which around 50 people were killed and many more wounded”.
Afghanistan’s air force has pounded IS targets in the eastern province where Logari was killed, the Afghan government said yesterday.
The Interior Ministry said the airstrikes killed at least 34 IS fighters over the past 24 hours and destroyed an insurgent-controlled radio station in Nangarhar province.
The casualty toll could not be independently confirmed as the area is off-limits to reporters. The ministry also said that the strikes targeted IS hideouts in Nazyan and Achin districts.
It said the radio station had been illegally broadcasting IS messages across the eastern province and was therefore a threat to the people and the government.
The Islamic State group, which seized much territory in Iraq and Syria in a 2014 blitz, first emerged in Afghanistan in 2015, mainly in Nangarhar province but has since tried to enlarge its footprint, including by staging large-scale attacks in Kabul and elsewhere.
Meanwhile, Pakistan and Afghanistan started a joint survey following last week’s deadly clashes along the two countries’ disputed boundary in Pakistan’s south-west, officials said yesterday.
The two sides agreed to conduct a geological survey of the border villages to “remove discrepancies”.
Pakistan has said that Afghan forces fired on Pakistani census workers and troops escorting them,killing two soldiers and nine civilians on Friday. Islamabad also claimed 50 Afghan troops were killed in retaliatory action, a claim Kabul denies, saying only two border policemen and a civilian were killed.
Kashif Nabi, a local administrator in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province said the surveyor teams, which included military officers, arrived in the border villages yesterday and were working “amicably.”
Sartaj Aziz, the foreign affairs adviser to Pakistani prime minister, said neither side wants “any violence between our two countries”.