Home GLOBAL NEWS US air strike kills ISIS second-in-command

US air strike kills ISIS second-in-command

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Islamic State’s second-in-command was hit during a U.S. air strike in Iraq on Tuesday, the White House said on Friday.

“Fadhil Ahmad al-Hayali, also known as Hajji Mutazz … was killed in a U.S. military air strike on August 18 while travelling in a vehicle near Mosul, Iraq, along with an ISIL media operative known as Abu Abdullah,” White House spokesman Ned Price said in a statement.

“(His) death will adversely impact ISIL’s operations given that his influence spanned ISIL’s finance, media, operations, and logistics,” Price said, referring to the group by an acronym.

The White House statement said the dead leader was a “primary coordinator” for moving weapons, explosives, vehicles, and people between Iraq and Syria. He was in charge of operations in Iraq and helped plan the offensive in Mosul in June of last year.

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ISIS self-declared caliphate based in Iraq and Syria is subject to daily air strikes from the US and its allies. A drone strike last month killed a senior Islamic State leader.

Mutazz was a lieutenant colonel in the army of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and, like many who later went on to form the core of Islamic State’s leadership, was detained by U.S. troops in Iraq at the Camp Bucca detention facility, said Harleen Gambhir, a counter terrorism analyst at the Institute for the Study of War. It was likely after leaving Camp Bucca that he joined Islamic State’s predecessor, Al Qaeda in Iraq, she said.

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However, there is a smokescreen because, U.S. officials had in late 2014 said that they had killed Mutazz in an airstrike.

One counter-terrorism specialist said the impact of the killing on Islamic State could be short-lived and noted how much territory it controls determines its power.

“My experience in looking at the Islamic State suggests they have demonstrated … an ability to move people up into positions” when high-ranking operatives are killed, said Seth Jones, a former Pentagon official now at the RAND Corporation.

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A U.S. official is in agreement with  that, but said the death was damaging to the group’s reputation.

“The death of Mutazz removes a key figure from ISIL and further pierces the group’s veneer of invincibility that it has sought to cast,” the official said.

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