US strikes back at group tied to Kabul bombing

Bloomberg

US forces carried out a strike in Afghanistan against the terrorist organisation believed responsible for the devastating bombing that killed at least 88 people near the Kabul airport a day earlier.
“US military forces conducted an over-the-horizon counterterrorism operation on Saturday against an IS-K planner,” said Captain Bill Urban, a spokesman for US Central Command. He added that the unmanned assault took place
in Afghanistan’s Nangahar Province, east of Kabul.
The person was suspected of being involved in plotting future attacks, but had no direct link to assault in Kabul, according to a US official.
The official, who was granted anonymity to discuss the operation, said the target was killed by a Reaper drone while traveling in a vehicle. “Initial indications are that we killed the target,” Urban said. “We know of no civilian casualties.”
Thirteen US service members and at least 75 Afghan citizens died in what the Pentagon now says was a single suicide bombing rather than the two previously reported.
President Joe Biden vowed to complete the US evacuation mission in Afghanistan and pledged to pursue the attackers, saying that “we will not forgive, we will not forget, we will hunt you down and make you pay.”
Asked by reporters whether the president would order a mission to kill those responsible for the bombing, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters: “He does not want them to live on the Earth anymore.” The White House declined to comment, pointing to Psaki’s earlier remarks.
The latest strike marks at least the third time the Reaper, built by privately-held General Atomics, has been used in a high-profile attack. A Reaper firing laser-guided Hellfire missiles was used in a nighttime November 2015 attack in Syria that killed IS terrorist Mohammed Emwazi, known as Jihadi John.
More recently, a Reaper fired two Hellfires during a night attack outside Baghdad International Airport in January 2020 that killed Iranian general Qassem Soleimani just after he arrived in Iraq.
The Reaper, a $64 million long-endurance aircraft with a 20-meter (66-foot) wingspan, had Soleimani in its sights for about 10 minutes before firing on two cars carrying the Iranian commander and other senior leaders and aides, including the head of an Iraqi-based militia group that had been in conflict with US forces.