WASHINGTON: After dropping a monster bomb on its fighters, then targeting its leader, the US military is looking to destroy the Islamic State group's Afghan branch before battle-hardened reinforcements arrive from Syria and Iraq.

While US and Kabul government forces have mainly been combatting Taliban fighters since 2001, IS's local offshoot -- also known as Islamic State-Khorasan, or ISIS-K -- has a stronghold in eastern Afghanistan.

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