Afghan forces – backed by the US- have recently carried out a series of operations against IS
The head of so-called Islamic State (IS) in Afghanistan, Abdul Hasib, has been killed, President Ashraf Ghani’s office has said.
It said he died 10 days ago in an operation led by Afghan Special Forces in the eastern Nangarhar province.
Hasib is believed to have been behind March’s attack on a military hospital in Kabul, killing more than 30 people.
Last month, the Pentagon said Hasib had probably been killed in a raid by US and Afghan Special Forces.
In April, the US military dropped its largest non-nuclear bomb ever used by America in a conflict on a system of tunnels believed to be used by IS militants in Nangarhar.
IS announced it was moving into Afghanistan and Pakistan when it declared its so-called Khorasan Province in 2015, and has since carried out a number of attacks.
In July 2016, a suicide bomb attack on a rally in Kabul killed about 80 people.
Three months later, two similar attacks during the religious festival of Ashura claimed about 30 lives, and in November 2016 an attack at a mosque in Kabul killed more than 30.
IS also claimed a suicide attack at Kabul’s Supreme Court in February that killed 22 people, and the group has stepped up activity in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
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