U.S. drones targeted ISIS-K extremists in eastern Afghanistan on Friday, Pentagon officials said, in the first retaliation against the terrorist group a day after 13 American troops were killed and nearly 20 others wounded in an attack at the Kabul airport.
Military officials suggested that the individual targeted and killed by Friday’s strike was involved in the planning of Thursday’s terrorist attack in Kabul.
“U.S. military forces conducted an over-the-horizon counterterrorism operation today against an ISIS-K planner,” U.S. Central Command spokesman Capt. Bill Urban said in a statement late Friday evening. “The unmanned airstrike occurred in the Nangahar Province of Afghanistan. Initial indications are that we killed the target. We know of no civilian casualties.”
The Nangahar province is east of Kabul and borders Pakistan.
The phrase “over the horizon” suggests that the U.S. launched the attack from outside Afghanistan. Pentagon officials have routinely used that phrase in recent months when discussing how America will target terrorists in Afghanistan after the U.S. military withdrawal from the country is completed.
On Thursday, President Biden vowed to “hunt down” those responsible for the Kabul attack, which came as the U.S. frantically tries to evacuate the final American citizens and thousands more Afghan allies from the country before the White House’s self-imposed Aug. 31 deadline to leave.
Thursday’s attack saw an ISIS-K terrorist detonate an explosive at a Kabul airport gate. Gunmen then opened fire on forces guarding the facility. In addition to the American deaths, more than 100 Afghans died.
Administration officials have warned that additional ISIS-K attacks are likely as Aug. 31 approaches.
ISIS-K is the Afghan affiliate of the Islamic State organization. While the group has just several thousand fighters in its ranks, it has built a reputation for well-planned, shockingly brutal acts of violence.
Last year, for example, ISIS-K gunmen stormed a maternity ward in a majority Shiite neighborhood in Kabul, killing at least 24 people, including newborn babies and their mothers.
The Taliban is operating security checkpoints outside the Kabul airport. But those checks failed to stop the ISIS-K bomber and gunmen from reaching the facility, where thousands of U.S. troops are still stationed to oversee the airlift.