
Biden promised ISIS-K will 'pay.' Having no US troops in Afghanistan makes that harder
CNN
As the Biden administration grapples with the challenge of carrying out counterterrorism missions in Afghanistan without US boots on the ground, CNN has learned new details about last Sunday's drone strike on suspected ISIS-K fighters in Kabul that some officials say provide insight into the obstacles ahead for military and intelligence officials tasked with fulfilling President Joe Biden's promise to make the terror group "pay" for its deadly suicide attack in Kabul.
The US relied in part on overhead surveillance imagery to target the suspected ISIS-K fighters, according to two US officials. The imagery showed the suspected ISIS-K fighters loading explosives into the trunk of a car, the officials told CNN. Intelligence assets tracked the vehicle for an extended period of time and saw it stop at multiple suspected ISIS-K locations, according to a third official, and by the time of the strike, the Pentagon had amassed enough other evidence to believe that the vehicle was headed for Hamid Karzai International Airport to launch an attack.
The two men killed as they floated holding onto their capsized boat in a secondary strike against a suspected drug vessel in early September did not appear to have radio or other communications devices, the top military official overseeing the strike told lawmakers on Thursday, according to two sources with direct knowledge of his congressional briefings.












