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Top Islamic State commander killed in Syria, Pentagon official says
PUBLISHED : Friday, 25 March, 2016, 11:29pm
UPDATED : Friday, 25 March, 2016, 11:29pm
WASHINGTON POST
A top Islamic State commander named Haji Imam was killed during an operation earlier this month, a senior US defence official said on Friday. The official said that Secretary of Defence Ashton Carter and General Joseph Dunford would make the announcement during a press briefing on Friday morning.
Imam was a holdover from the Islamic State’s earlier iteration of al-Qaeda in Iraq and served under Abu Musab al-Zarqawi before joining the Islamic State, according to the Treasury Department, which includes him on its list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists. His full name is Abd Al-Rahman Mustafa Al-Qaduli, according to the Treasury.
Earlier this month, the Islamic State’s “emir of war” Abu Omar al-Shishani, also known as Omar the Chechen, was killed after a US air strike in northeastern Syria.
Islamic State second in command likely killed during major offensive: U.S.
Andrea Shalal and Susan Heavey, Reuters
First posted: Friday, March 25, 2016 12:29 PM EDT | Updated: Friday, March 25, 2016 01:39 PM EDT
Abd al-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli is seen in an undated picture from the U.S. Department of State. Al-Qaduli, the second-in-command of the Islamic State, was killed in a raid in Syria on Thursday, a U.S. official told Reuters. REUTERS/U.S. Department of State/Handout via Reuters
WASHINGTON - Islamic State's second in command and other senior leaders were likely killed this week in a major offensive targeting financial operations, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on Friday, the latest in a series of setbacks for the militant group.
Carter told a Pentagon press briefing the United States believes it killed Haji Iman, a senior leader in charge of finances for the self-declared caliphate, and Abu Sarah, who Carter said was charged with paying fighters in northern Iraq.
U.S. Marine General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the briefing the deaths reflected "indisputable" new momentum in the fight against Islamic State.
Dunford said he expected to increase U.S. forces now in Iraq from the current 3,800 and bolster the capabilities of Iraqi forces preparing for a major offensive against Islamic State in Mosul, but that those decisions had not been finalized.
"We are systematically eliminating ISIL's cabinet," Carter said, using another acronym for the group.
Earlier media reports said Haji Iman, who also went by Abd ar-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli and other aliases, had been killed in a U.S. air strike in Syria, but Pentagon officials declined to say how the operation had been carried out.
The strike comes amid growing pressure on Islamic State, which is steadily losing territory in Iraq and Syria to U.S.-backed forces.
While the operational significance of removing Haji Iman from the battlefield is not yet clear, it is the latest in a series of strikes against the group's top leaders, including Abu Omar al-Shishani, described by the Pentagon as the group's "minister of war," and a senior Islamic State chemical weapons operative captured by Iraq-based U.S. commandos and turned over to the Iraqi government.
Carter said the killing of Haji Iman, who was imprisoned in the region until 2012, would hamper the group's ability to operate inside and outside of Iraq and Syria. But he conceded that alone was not sufficient to cripple it.
"These leaders have been around for a long time. They are senior, they're experienced, and so eliminating them is an important objective and it achieves an important result," he said. "But they will be replaced and we'll continue to go after their leadership and other aspects of their capability."
U.S. officials said they were helping Iraqis prepare for a major operation in Mosul to take back territory from Islamic State, which aims to establish a caliphate in Iraq and Syria.
U.S. Marines were providing artillery fire at the request of Iraq to help support Iraqi forces moving into new positions, they said. They stressed Iraqi forces were carrying out the assault and said the U.S. military was not digging in for a larger ground combat role.
Carter said Haji Iman had been involved in external affairs for Islamic State and played a role in recruiting foreign fighters but could not confirm that he had anything to do with this week's deadly attacks in Brussels, which killed 31 people.
"It's a big blow to IS," said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst and Middle East expert at the Brookings Institution think tank. "He has been an important figure going back to a decade ago during Abu Musaib Zarqawi's era in creating what became ISIS," he said, using another acronym for the group.
Dunford said the U.S. military had significantly increased sharing intelligence with European militaries in recent months as authorities sought to stem the tide of foreign fighters streaming into Iraq and Syria.
He said fighters from more than 100 countries were now in Syria and Iraq and there were estimates the total exceeded 30,000. Greater cooperation was needed by all those countries to avert attacks like the ones in Brussels, he said.
