Islamic State radio has been taken off the air by a U.S. drone strike, Afghan authorities say.
Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar’s police spokesperson, Hazrat Hussain Mashreqiwal, told VOA the drone strike took place in the Mamand mountainous area. He said there were no reports of casualties resulting from the strike.
The Afghan Defense Ministry also confirmed to a number of media outlets that the “Voice of Caliphate” radio has been silenced.
There was no immediate confirmation from U.S. authorities.
IS radio said in a tweet: “The voice of Khilafah of the Islamic state strongly rejects the reports of the puppet regime of Kabul that the radio has been destroyed. “
The radio station, operation from a mobile transmitter in a mountainous Afghan-Pakistan border area, has terrorized the region for two months. First broadcasting in Pashto, the FM station added Dari language broadcasts to its lineup last week.
The broadcasts, which ran daily, included anti-government propaganda, invitations to join IS, threats against government employees and interviews with IS fighters.
The Afghan government tried several times but failed to take the broadcasts off the air. According to the ministry’s spokesperson, Dawlat Waziri, security forces silenced the radio station for brief periods twice before.
Local resident Abdul Qayum told VOA that warplanes carried out heavy bombardments overnight in the Achin district, which borders Pakistan. He added that the radio broadcasts went down after the strikes.