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US-led drone strike kills over dozen in eastern Afghanistan

This file photo shows a US MQ-9 Reaper drone in flight.

More than a dozen people have been killed in a drone strike carried out by US-led foreign forces in Afghanistan’s eastern province of Nangarhar.

The 201st Selab (Flood) Corps of the Afghan National Army announced in a statement that the aerial attack was conducted in the Dih Bala district of the province, which is located 120 kilometers (74 miles) east of the Afghan capital, Kabul, on Saturday.

The statement further identified the deceased as seventeen members of Daesh Takfiri militant group.

The development came only a day after at least 11 people were killed in a US drone attack in the same Afghan province, which has seen a rise in the presence of Daesh militants over the past months.

Attaullah Khogyani, the spokesman for the provincial governor, said the aerial assault occurred in the Achin district of Nangarhar Province. He added that a Daesh militant commander, identified as Hafiz Saeed, and 10 of his comrades were killed in the airstrike.

Khogyani further noted that the son of Mangal Bagh, another key Daesh commander, was among the slain terrorists.

On January 2, another five people lost their lives in a US drone strike in the Shaigal district of Afghanistan’s northeastern province of Kunar.

Provincial governor, Wahidullah Kalimzai, said five members of the Pakistan-based Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militant group were killed in the assault.

The CIA spy agency regularly uses drones for airstrikes and spying missions in Afghanistan as well as Pakistan’s northwestern tribal belt near the Afghan border.

Washington has also been conducting targeted killings through remotely-controlled armed drones in Somalia and Yemen.

The US says the airstrikes target members of al-Qaeda and other militants, but according to local officials and witnesses, civilians have in most cases been the victims of the attacks.


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