US will have no right to attack Afghanistan after August 31: Taliban

Kabul: The Taliban has said that the US will have no right to attack Afghanistan after it completes its withdrawal from the country on August 31, in response to Washington’s drone strike against two ISIS-Khorasan operatives in Nangarhar province.

Reacting to the US drone strike that killed an ISIS-K planner and an associate on Friday, Suhail Shaheen, a spokesman for the Taliban's political office, said that the Taliban-led government will stop any such attack in Afghanistan after August 31, according to Geo News.

The US had launched the drone strike against a Daesh attack "planner" in eastern Afghanistan, a day after a suicide bombing at Kabul airport killed around 200 people, including 13 US troops.

The Taliban’s main spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid has also condemned the US drone strike, terming it a "clear attack on Afghan territory".

Pentagon press secretary John Kirby on Saturday said that the US drone strike in Afghanistan killed two “high profile” ISIS-K targets and wounded another, and added that the fact that they are no longer walking on the face of the Earth “is a good thing”.

Addressing a news conference in Washington, Kirby declined to name the two ISIS-Khorasan members eliminated.

“I am not going to talk about specific capabilities the ISIS may have lost. In this strike they lost a planner and they lost a facilitator and got one wounded.

“The fact that two of these individuals are no longer walking on the face of the Earth, that’s a good thing. It’s a good thing for the people of Afghanistan and it’s a good thing for our troops, for our forces at the airport,” Kirby said.

“We aren’t thinking for a minute that what happened yesterday gets us in the clear. We believe hitting these targets will have an impact on ISIS-K,” he added.

The Taliban took over Afghanistan on August 15, and are set to form the government there. The US is rushing to complete the evacuation of its citizens and personnel from Kabul by August 31. (UNI)