Media reports say that according to the Pentagon, the leader of ISIL’s Afghanistan branch has been killed by a US air strike.
Abu Sayed was killed in an air strike at the group's headquarters in Kunar province earlier this week, Pentagon spokeswomen Dana White said in a statement on July 14.
The July 11 raid also killed other members of Isis and would "significantly disrupt the terror group's plans to expand its presence in Afghanistan", the statement added.
According to The Independent, Sayed was the “emir” of ISIS-Khorasan (ISIS-K), the terror group’s affiliate in Afghanistan, which has been active since 2015, fighting against the Taliban as well as Afghan and US forces.
Al Jazeera reports that Sayed is the third ISIL leader in Afghanistan to be killed since July 2016.
Sayed had reportedly led the group since late April after the previous leader, Abdul Hasib, had been killed by US forces. Hasib's predecessor Hafiz Sayed Khan was also killed by US forces.
