Senior ISIL commander killed in Afghanistan's Helmand
Afghan officials say a senior commander of the ISIL terrorist group has been killed along with four of his comrades during a cleanup operation in Afghanistan's troubled south, Press TV reports.
Shah Mahmood Ashna, a spokesman for the provincial police headquarters, said on Friday that the militant commander, identified as Sulaiman, was killed along with four others when Afghan security forces launched a surprise attack on their hideout in the Kajaki district of the southern Helmand Province.
Ashna also noted that Afghan forces suffered no casualties during the encounter.
Afghan security sources say the death of notorious ISIL militants and commanders would be a major setback for the terrorist group operating inside Helmand and adjacent provinces.
Senior Afghan officials have warned that the violent Takfiri group, which controls swathes of land in Iraq and Syria, is actively recruiting militants in the war-torn country. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has recently said that ISIL is worse than al-Qaeda for Afghanistan.
More US drone strikes
Meanwhile in a separate development, a fresh US drone strike claimed the lives of at least six people in the country’s southeast.
The causalities were caused after a US unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) targeted a vehicle carrying Taliban militants in the Bermal district of the southeastern Paktika Province on Thursday night.
Afghan officials say a senior Taliban commander identified as Sultan was among those killed in the attack.
Despite Washington’s claims that such strikes target al-Qaeda and Taliban militant hideouts, local sources say civilians usually fall victim in most cases.
The United Nations (UN) has identified the US as the world’s number one country involved in “targeted killings,” largely due to its drone strikes in Afghanistan and Pakistan and some other Muslim countries.
Meanwhile, at least ten people lost their lives after a bomb went off near a Defense Ministry compound in the central part of the Afghan capital, Kabul early on Friday. Afghanistan’s health ministry says some 400 people, including women and children, were wounded in the explosion.
The militancy-riddled country faces a security challenge nearly 14 years after the United States and its allies invaded it in 2001 as part of Washington’s so-called war on terror.
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