Head of Islamic State in Afghanistan killed: Pentagon

Washington: The head of Islamic State in Afghanistan, Abu Sayed, was killed in a strike on the group's headquarters in Kunar province earlier this week, the Pentagon said on Friday.

Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White said in a statement that other members of the Islamic State group were killed in the strike on Tuesday.

Sayed is the third Islamic State leader in Afghanistan to be killed since July 2016. 

Former leader Abdul Hasib was killed in a joint US and Afghan operation on April 27 in the eastern province of Nangarhar. 

Hasib's predecessor Hafiz Saeed Khan died in a US drone strike in 2016. 

The local affiliate of Islamic State, sometimes known as Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K), after an old name for the region that includes Afghanistan, has been active since 2015, fighting the Taliban and Afghan and US forces.