Last month, President Obama granted the Pentagon broad authority to target ISIS forces in Afghanistan at will, revising the previous rules which only allowed them to target the group under specific circumstances. When it comes to unrestricted bombing, you don’t have to ask the Pentagon twice.
Pentagon spokesmen are now bragging about having “significantly” increased the number of strikes against ISIS over the past few weeks, particularly in Nangarhar Province, where the group is believed to be based in the area around Jalalabad.
It was only shortly before that chance in targeting authority that the Pentagon conceded that ISIS in Afghanistan was even a functional organization, as they’d previously dismissed it as simply a bunch of Taliban defectors with limited ties to ISIS itself.
So far, the increased number of US strikes hasn’t led to any highly publicized achievements, as the biggest thing the US has confirmed hitting in Afghanistan was an ISIS-backed radio station operating in Jalalabad.