Pentagon: US Airstrike Has Targeted Taliban Leader Mullah Mansour

FILE - This March 27, 2008, file photo, shows the Pentagon in Washington. Ali Awni al-Harzi, an Islamic State operative suspected of involvement in the 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya, h... FILE - This March 27, 2008, file photo, shows the Pentagon in Washington. Ali Awni al-Harzi, an Islamic State operative suspected of involvement in the 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya, has been killed in a U.S. airstrike in Iraq, the Pentagon said Monday, June 22, 2015. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File) MORE LESS
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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon has announced that the U.S. has conducted an airstrike targeting Taliban leader Mullah Mansour. One American official says the U.S. believes Mansour was killed in what was a drone strike authorized by President Barack Obama.

Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said the attack occurred in a remote region along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. He said the U.S. was studying the results of the attack, leaving Mansour’s fate unclear.

But a U.S. official not authorized to publicly discuss the operation said Mansour and a second male combatant accompanying him in a vehicle were likely killed.

The official said the attack was carried out by unmanned aircraft operated by U.S. Special Operations Forces. The official said the operation occurred at about 6 a.m. EDT southwest of the town of Ahmad Wal.

Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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