WASHINGTON, United States. The No 2 leader of the Islamic State militant group was killed in a US military airstrike in northern Iraq earlier this week.
Ned Price, a spokesman for the White House National Security Council, said Fadhil Ahmad al-Hayali was travelling in a vehicle near Mosul when he was killed Tuesday.
As the senior deputy to Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, al-Hayali was the primary co-ordinator for moving large amounts of weapons, explosives, vehicles and people between Iraq and Syria, where IS militants control vast amounts of territory.
Al-Hayali oversaw the Islamic State in Iraq, where he planned operations during the past two years, including an offensive the group launched in Mosul in June last year. He was a member of al-Qaeda in Iraq, the predecessor group to Isis.
Also killed in Tuesday’s airstrike was an Islamic State media operative known as Abu Abdullah.
Price characterised al-Hayali’s death as a blow to the organisation because his influence spanned finance, media, operations and logistics for the group.
But his removal is unlikely to affect Isis operations or weaken the group.
It will most likely lead to even tighter security and secrecy around al-Baghdadi, whom Iraqi intelligence officials say has mostly kept out of sight since he was wounded in an Iraqi airstrike near the Syrian border.
Credit: NZ Herald / AP
