The leader of Al-Qaeda's South Asian branch was killed in a US-Afghan joint raid in southern Afghanistan last month, Afghan officials confirmed Tuesday. Asim Umar, who led Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) from its inception in 2014, was killed during a raid September 23 on a Taliban compound in the Musa Qala district of Helmand province.

Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security said Umar was a Pakistani citizen, though some reports claim he was born in India. He "was killed along with six other AQIS members, most of them Pakistani", the NDS said on Twitter, adding that Umar had been "embedded" with the Taliban. The raid was part of a lengthy and confusing overnight operation from September 22-23 for which the US provided air support.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2019