DUSHANBE, December 30, 2015, Asia-Plus — U.S.-led forces have killed 10 leaders of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group in air strikes, including individuals linked to the Paris attacks, a U.S. spokesman said, dealing a double blow to the militant group after Iraqi forces ousted it from the city of Ramadi.
Reuters
reports Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi planted the national flag in Ramadi after the army retook the city center from Islamic State, a victory that could help vindicate his strategy for rebuilding the military after stunning defeats.
“Over the past month, we”ve killed 10 ISIL leadership figures with targeted air strikes, including several external attack planners, some of whom are linked to the Paris attacks,” said U.S. Army Colonel Steve Warren, a spokesman for the U.S.-led campaign against the Islamist group also known by the acronym ISIL.
One of those killed was Abdul Qader Hakim, who facilitated the militants” external operations and had links to the Paris attack network, Warren said. He was killed in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on December 26.
Two days earlier, a coalition air strike in Syria killed Charaffe al Mouadan, a Syria-based Islamic State member with a direct link to Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected ringleader of the coordinated bombings and shootings in Paris on November 13, which killed 130 people, Warren said.
Mouadan was planning further attacks against the West, he added.
Air strikes on Islamic State”s leadership helped explain recent battlefield successes against the group, which also lost control of a dam on a strategic supply route near its de facto capital of Raqqa in Syria on Saturday.
“Part of those successes is attributable to the fact that the organization is losing its leadership,” Warren said.
He warned, however: “It”s still got fangs.”
Coalition spokesman Warren said casualties to Iraqi forces during the battle for Ramadi were in the low double digits. He and Iraqi officials put Islamic State casualties in the hundreds.
The government has designated the mostly Sunni city of Mosul, 400 kilometers north of Baghdad, as the next target for Iraq”s armed forces, according to
Reuters
.
