The Pentagon has released footage of a joint Afghan and US Special Forces night operation in Jawzjan that killed a Daesh commander and one other insurgent.
The night raid was carried out in Mughul village of Darzab district in the province three days ago, the Pentagon said on Wednesday, adding that “this tactical defeat of ISIS-K (Daesh) fighters in Jawzjan is the most recent in a series of Afghan and US SOF counterterrorism successes targeting Daesh in northern Afghanistan this year.”
According to the Pentagon, the Afghan and US forces also eliminated four Daesh fighters in Darzab district.
“Six days earlier on March 16, a US airstrike killed Daesh platoon commanders, Omair and Abu Samaya, as the duo met in Sar-e Pul province. Later that evening, an ASSF nighttime raid on the Daesh headquarters in Jawzjan resulted in the removal of another 13 terrorists. Omair and Abu Samaya's predecessor Khitab Aka, Daesh’s head facilitator of foreign fighters in Jawzjan, was captured by Afghan forces on Jan. 28.”
The Pentagon stated Daesh was unable to take root in Afghanistan, relying on exploiting tribal rivalries for short-term allegiance and external support for fighters, equipment and financing.
This statement came just hours after the Afghan Ministry of Defense confirmed the Afghan National Army’s (ANA) Air Force dropped a laser-guided bomb on a Taliban stronghold in Farah province, in the west of Afghanistan, for the first time in combat.
Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammad Radmanish said some local Taliban commanders were killed in the raid.
Afghan forces will target Taliban strongholds from the air by using the technology, he said. According to the MoD, the bomb was dropped three days ago.
However, the US Department of Defense said an A-29 Super Tucano, equipped with both guided and unguided bombs, dropped the GBU-58 on March 22.
Radmanish said: “This is new and modern technology (for Afghanistan) in which a bomb is dropped by a pilot from inside the aircraft’s cabin and is guided by the pilot towards its target.”