Pentagon says U.S. drone strike kills 2 ISIS-K targets

Photo taken on Feb. 19, 2020 shows the Pentagon seen from an airplane over Washington D.C., the United States. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)

The strike came after a suicide bombing outside Kabul airport on Thursday which killed 13 U.S. service members and some 170 Afghans. ISIS-K had claimed responsibility for the attack.

The Pentagon said on Saturday that two high-profile targets of ISIS-K, a local affiliate of the Islamic State in Afghanistan, were killed in a U.S. drone strike on Friday.

"Two high-profile ISIS targets were killed, one was wounded, and we know of zero civilian casualties," U.S. Army Major General Hank Taylor told reporters in a Pentagon briefing.

U.S. Central Command initially assessed on Friday that the drone strike, which occurred in Nangarhar province of eastern Afghanistan, killed one ISIS-K planner.

The strike came after a suicide bombing outside Kabul airport on Thursday which killed 13 U.S. service members and some 170 Afghans. ISIS-K had claimed responsibility for the attack.

Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby said in the briefing that the U.S. military supporting evacuation had begun its withdrawal from Kabul airport.

President Joe Biden set Aug. 31 as the deadline to end U.S. military mission in Afghanistan.

The United States has been scrambling to evacuate Americans and its Afghan partners from the country since the Taliban entered Kabul on Aug. 15. The White House said on Saturday around 111,900 people had left Afghanistan since Aug. 14.