Persistent ground and air operations throughout the winter expelled ISIS from more than 7 Km of mountainous terrain in southeastern Nangarhar leaving the Afghanistan branch of the terror group ISIS debilitated and reduced to ashes.
A recent inspector general report declared that the ISIS Afghanistan branch has lost more than half its fighters due to Afghan and U.S. airstrikes. Officials with U.S. Forces said it was hard to estimate the number of remaining ISIS fighters in Afghanistan, but U.S. officials claimed in September that the terrorist group was capable of fielding between 2,000 and 5,000 fighters. Afghanistan’s ISIS offshoot lost its stronghold in Nangarhar Province in November, forcing 300 of the jihadi fighters to surrender to Afghan forces, but the terrorist group continues to limp on despite intense military pressure against the group over the last five months.
Spokesman for U.S. Forces in Afghanistan, Col. Sonny Leggett, announced that on February 25, U.S. military launched two airstrikes in Kunar Province, Afghanistan, targeting and killing four ISIS fighters. “We continue to eliminate ISIS terrorists wherever they hide to protect Afghanistan,” Leggett said on Twitter. For his part, spokesman for the governor of Kunar, Abdul Ghani Musamim, highlighted that an ISIS shadow deputy governor and a military leader were among those killed.
