15 killed in US assassination drone strike in eastern Afghanistan
Authorities in Afghanistan say more than a dozen people have lost their lives in a US assassination drone strike in the country’s eastern province of Nangarhar.
Colonel Hazrat Hussain Mashriqiwal, a spokesman for the Nangarhar provincial police department, said on Thursday that the drone attack took place in the Achin district of the province, which is located 120 kilometers (74 miles) east of the Afghan capital, Kabul, the previous night.
He added that 15 members of the Daesh Takfiri militant group were killed in the aerial assault.
On February 3, at least 18 people lost their lives when US-led foreign forces carried out a string of drone strikes in Afghanistan’s southeastern province of Paktika.
A provincial security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, identified the deceased as members of the Taliban militant group, noting that they hailed from Pakistan’s mountainous northwestern region of Waziristan, and had sneaked into Afghanistan's soil through the area.
The attack came only a day after US forces carried out a drone strike in the Achin district of the troubled eastern province of Nangarhar, killing three members of the Daesh Takfiri militant group.
On January 26, five people were also killed in a US drone attack in the same Afghan province, which has seen a rise in the presence of Daesh militants over the past months.
The CIA spy agency regularly uses drones for airstrikes and spying missions in Afghanistan as well as Pakistan’s northwestern tribal belt near the Afghan border.
Washington has also been conducting targeted killings through remotely-controlled armed drones in Somalia and Yemen.
The United States says the airstrikes only target members of al-Qaeda and other militants, but according to local officials and witnesses, civilians have been the main victims of the attacks in most cases.
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