KABUL: Afghanistan’s main intelligence agency said on Tuesday a top regional Al-Qaeda leader was killed last month during a joint raid led by United States and Afghan troops in Afghanistan’s southern Helmand province.
The National Directorate of Security (NDS) said Asim Omar, a leader of the network operating on the Indian subcontinent, and other members were killed in the Musa Qala district of Helmand, a main bastion of Taliban insurgents.
“NDS can now confirm the death of Asim Omar, leader of Al Qaeda in the Indian subcontinent (AQIS), in a joint US-Afghan-led operation,” the spy agency said.
It described Omar as a Pakistani national, and said six other terrorists were killed in the operation, including Raihan, Omar’s courier to Ayman Al-Zawahiri, the leader of Al-Qaeda.
Al-Zawahiri announced the creation of AQIS in a video message released in September 2014, and said Omar would be its top commander.
The US attacked Afghanistan after the September 11, 2001 attacks in which Al-Qaeda hijackers crashed passenger aircraft into the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, killing almost 3,000 people. The US-led coalition ousted the Taliban from power for harboring terrorists in Afghanistan, and drove Al-Qaeda’s leaders, including Osama bin Laden, into Pakistan.
The network has been decimated over the years but US officials believe there are still small numbers of its fighters in Afghanistan, some with deep ties to the Taliban insurgency. More are located across the border in Pakistan.
Many US officials doubt the Taliban can be relied upon to prevent Al-Qaeda from plotting further attacks against the United States from Afghan soil. This was one of the main US demands during the peace negotiations with the Taliban that US President Donald Trump declared to be “dead” last month.
