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Former ISIS-K leader Abu Sayed was killed in a strike in the eastern province of Nangarhar and Sayed’s predecessors were killed in joint U.S. and Afghan operations. READ MORE: Toronto ISIS member killed in Syria, says pro-ISIS group

Ten other members of the militant group were also killed in a joint ground and air operation by Afghan and foreign forces, the National Directorate of Security in Kabul said in a statement. The air attacks on a village in Khugyani district, near the border with Pakistan, also destroyed a large number of weapons, explosives, and ammunition, the agency said. The terrorist group's Amaq's news agency carried no comment on the issue, and there was no immediate reaction from the NATO-led Resolute Support mission that trains and advises Afghan forces. Lieutenant-Colonel Martin O’Donnell, a spokesman for U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said the United States carried out a strike in Afghanistan on Saturday against a “senior leader of a designated terrorist organization.”

The provincial governor of Nangarhar said Erhabi was the fourth Islamic State leader in Afghanistan to be killed since July 2017. ISIL has a relatively small but potent presence in Afghanistan, mainly in Nangarhar - the birthplace of the group's Afghan branch - but more recently in the northern province of Jowzjan where it is fighting for control of smuggling routes into neighbouring Turkmenistan.
Afghan authorities say that, in a joint ground and air operation on Saturday night, Afghan and foreign forces killed the head of ISIL/K, along with ten other members of the militant group.