US believes killed IS 'planner' in drone strike following Kabul airport attack

US believes killed IS 'planner' in drone strike following Kabul airport attack
Captain Bill Urban said that '[i]nitial indications are that we killed the target', an Islamic State-Khorasan 'planner', following Thursday's deadly Kabul airport terror attack.
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The drone strike against an IS 'planner' follows a deadly terror attack at Kabul airport [Taylor Crul/U.S. Air Force/Getty]

The US military on Friday said it had carried out a drone strike against a "planner" of the Islamic State-Khorasan, the group which claimed credit for the deadly suicide bombing at Kabul airport on Thursday.

"The unmanned airstrike occurred in the Nangahar Province of Afghanistan. Initial indications are that we killed the target," said Captain Bill Urban of the Central Command.

"We know of no civilian casualties," he added in a statement.

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This came one day after a suicide bomber targeted a crowd desperately trying to flee Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, killing at least 85 people, including dozens of Afghans.

The blast claimed by the Islamic State jihadist group targeted US forces, but hit hardest the mass of people who had converged on the airport in a desperate bid to escape the Taliban's feared hardline rule.

At least 72 civilians and 13 American troops were killed, according to various authorities, in an attack that came after a chorus of warnings of an imminent threat to the US-led evacuation effort, with the clock ticking towards a 31 August deadline.