Daesh Khorasan chief killed, claims Afghan President Ashraf Ghani

The head of the Deobandi-Wahhabi terrorist group Daesh Khorasan chapter (ISIS group) Abdul Hasib, was killed in an operation led by Afghan special forces in Nangarhar province, President Ashraf Ghani said yesterday.

Hasib, appointed last year after his predecessor Hafiz Saeed Khan died in a US drone strike, is believed to have ordered a series of high-profile attacks including one in March on the main military hospital in Kabul by a group of militants disguised as doctors, a statement said.
Last month, a Pentagon spokesman said Hasib had probably been killed during a raid by US and Afghan special forces in Nangarhar during which two US army Rangers were killed, but there was no confirmation.
The local affiliate of the Daesh sometimes known as IS Khorasan, after an old name for the region that also includes Afghanistan and Pakistan, has been active since 2015 and had been fighting both the Taliban, Afghan and US forces.
It is believed to maintain links with the main IS group in Iraq and Syria but has considerable operational independence.
US and Afghan special forces, backed by drone strikes and other air support, have waged a series of operations against IS-K this year, killing dozens of their fighters, mainly in Nangarhar, on the border with Pakistan.
Defeating the group remains one of the top US priorities in Afghanistan and last month the United States dropped its largest non-nuclear device on a network of caves and tunnels used by IS in Nangarhar, killing 94 fighters, including four commanders.