Islamic State's Afghanistan 'mastermind leader' killed in targeted raid

Abdul Hasib, whose group is affiliated with IS in Iraq and Syria, was reportedly killed last month in a targeted raid by special forces in the eastern province of Nangarhar.

MENA

2 min read

The New Arab & agencies

08 May, 2017

Around 5,000 NATO troops are helping Afghan forces battle the Islamic State group [Getty]

The head of Islamic State in Afghanistan – described as the mastermind behind high-profile attacks including an assault on a military hospital that claimed at least 50 lives – has been killed, US and Afghan officials said.

Abdul Hasib, whose group is affiliated with IS in Iraq and Syria, was killed last month in a targeted raid by special forces in the eastern province of Nangarhar, the presidential palace in Kabul said in a statement.

The second leader of the group to be killed by US and Afghan forces in less than nine months, his death came days after Washington dropped its largest non-nuclear bomb on IS hideouts in the same area.

Analysts described him as "obscure", but authorities ascribed responsibility to him for high-profile assaults in Kabul, including the savage attack on a military hospital in March when assailants stabbed bedridden patients and threw grenades into crowded wards.

"He had ordered the attack" on the hospital, the presidential statement said, adding that Kabul will fight IS and other extremist groups "until they are annihilated".

NATO commander in Afghanistan General John Nicholson confirmed the killing of Hasib and warned that "any ISIS member that comes to Afghanistan will meet the same fate".

"This is the second ISIS-K emir we have killed in nine months, along with dozens of their leaders and hundreds of their fighters," he added, using the acronym denoting the group's local affiliate, Islamic State Khorasan Province.

The first, Hafiz Saeed, was killed in a US airstrike also in Nangarhar province in July last year. Like Hasib, his death was seen as a setback, but not a mortal blow to the group.

"The death of Abdul Hasib does not make a difference for the Daesh group in Afghanistan," Kabul-based writer and analyst Ahmad Saeedi told AFP, using the Arabic acronym for Islamic State.

They will simply put another leader in place, he said. "Dozens of Daesh fighters have been killed in eastern Afghanistan, but it did not bring positive change."