The head of U.S. Central Command confirmed on Thursday that the U.S. military has conducted drone strikes on the Islamic State terrorist group to assist the Taliban.
“At some times in the past, when the Taliban was conducting operations in eastern Afghanistan against ISIS, [when] we had the opportunity to take a strike against ISIS formations, we would take that strike,” Marine Gen. Kenneth McKenzie Jr. told Defense One senior national security correspondent Katie Bo Williams.
“We did not do it in coordination with the Taliban – and it would be too large a use of the word to say we had ‘coordinated’ with the Taliban on that,” McKenzie continued. “But it was a common enemy. It was an opportunity to strike someone who is an implacable foe of the United States. We did it. It probably helped the Taliban, and that would be the way I would describe it.”
