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         Afghan Militant With Suspected IS Ties Killed in Drone Attack

   by VOA News

   A drone-fired missile killed an influential Afghan militant in southern
   Helmand province Monday, local officials said.

   Former Guantanamo Bay detainee Mullah Abdul Rauf was killed, along with
   five others, while traveling in a car in Eland province, the police
   chief said.

   Afghanistan's main intelligence agency said in a statement Rauf was in
   charge of Islamic State militants in the violence-plagued province in
   southwestern Afghanistan and he was killed just after midday in an
   operation carried out by Afghan forces.

   The United States operates drones over Afghanistan and neighboring
   Pakistan. U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan did not immediately respond to
   Reuters for requests for comment.

   Rauf, who had been influential in Afghanistan's jihadi movement for
   well over a decade, is suspected of having recently defected from the
   Taliban to the Islamic State group.

   Media reports said he had begun to recruit for the Islamist group. A
   local official said it could not be confirmed if Rauf had joined the
   Islamic State group.

   The Islamic State group, which controls a third of Syria and Iraq, has
   a small but growing presence in parts of Afghanistan, officials and
   tribal sources told The Associated Press last month.

   Some material for this report came from Reuters and AP.
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References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/afghan-militant-with-suspected-is-ties-killed-in-drone-attack/2634565.html