The US drone strike in Afghanistan pointed out that the ISIS-K planner is considered “associated with possible future attacks on the airport”

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The U.S. located him and “had enough eyes set and sufficient knowledge” to attack, the official said, adding that “he was a known entity,” but that the United States does not call him a top ISIS-K operator. “.

The target was located in an area of ​​the Jalalabad area, another defense official told CNN, and new intelligence was confirmed after the terrorist attack that killed 13 members of the northern service. American and at least 170 more people outside Kabul International Airport to justify the strike. The source said surveillance continued on the premises until the target’s wife and children left before the U.S. carried out the targeted drone attack.

The U.S. Central Command said in a statement Friday that it knew of no civilian casualties.

The announcement of the strike came a day after President Joe Biden vowed retaliation for the terrorist attack in Kabul, even when he said he would continue the frantic air transport mission of the United States. Afghanistan. Biden approved the strike at the ISIS-K planner, according to an official familiar with the matter.

“We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will persecute you and make you pay,” the president said Thursday in White House statements.

The U.S., Biden said, “will respond strongly and accurately at our time, in the place we choose, and at the time we choose. That’s what you need to know: these ISIS terrorists won’t win.”

An Afghan journalist who visited the site of the drone strike said he destroyed a house near Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan. Photos shared with CNN by the reporter show a small vehicle on the site badly damaged, as well as what appears to be major shrapnel damage in the vicinity.

ISIS in Khorasan, known as ISIS-K, has claimed that an ISIS militant carried out the suicide attack on Thursday, but did not provide any evidence to support the claim. U.S. officials have said the group is likely to be behind the bombing.

Biden and his team are now preparing for the possibility of another terrorist attack in the last days of the evacuation operation. On Friday, the U.S. embassy in Kabul again on Friday informed U.S. citizens at several airport gates that they were “leaving immediately” citing security threats.

“Because of security threats at Kabul airport, we continue to advise U.S. citizens to avoid traveling to the airport and to avoid airport gates,” the alert said.

CNN’s Jamie Crawford, Tim Lister, Sandi Sidhu and Oren Liebermann contributed to this report.

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