Afghanistan forces killed an Islamic State commander in an air strike, one year after he defected from the Taliban and established a new IS foothold within the country, security officials said, Reuters reported.
Qari Hekmat was killed in a drone strike on Thursday afternoon in the Darz Aab district of Afghanistan’s northern Jawzjan province, said Hanif Rezaee, spokesman for the Afghan National Army Air Corps.
The militant group established a new foothold in the province last year when Hekmat defected from the Taliban, attracting the attention of U.S. forces.
Hekmat is at least the seventh senior IS member killed in Afghanistan in the last 11 months.
“We are conducting a series of intensive operations in Jawzjan and across all of northern Afghanistan to defeat IS-K,” said Colonel Lisa Garcia, spokeswoman for U.S. Forces-Afghanistan in a statement, using the term for IS in the region.