Iraqi safety forces have killed a senior Islamic State (IS) group chief liable for international operations, in line with the nation’s prime minister, with US President Donald Trump saying later Friday his “depressing life was terminated”.
Though Iraq had proclaimed in 2017 the defeat of the jihadist group on its territory, IS cells have remained lively and perform sporadic assaults in opposition to Iraq’s military and police.
Abdallah Makki Muslih al-Rufayi “was thought-about one of the harmful terrorists in Iraq and the world”, Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani mentioned on social media platform X.
The jihadist, sanctioned by the US in 2023, was IS’s so-called governor of the group’s Syrian and Iraqi provinces, in line with the Iraqi premier.
Rufayi was additionally “liable for the international operations workplaces”, Sudani mentioned.
He didn’t say when Rufayi was killed however applauded the operation by Iraqi intelligence that was carried out in cooperation with the US-led anti-jihadist coalition in Iraq.
“At this time the fugitive chief of ISIS in Iraq was killed,” Trump mentioned on his Reality Social platform.
“He was relentlessly hunted down by our intrepid warfighters. His depressing life was terminated, together with one other member of ISIS, in coordination with the Iraqi Authorities and the Kurdish Regional Authorities.”
The US Central Command posted on X what seemed to be a video of the strike, which it mentioned “killed the World ISIS #2 chief… and one different ISIS operative.”
It mentioned that each fighters had been carrying unexploded “suicide vests” and that it had recognized Rufayi by way of a DNA match.
– Lingering presence –Final October, Baghdad mentioned Iraqi forces had killed 9 IS group commanders. They included the so-called governor of Iraq for IS, Jassim al-Mazrouei Abu Abdel Qader, Iraq’s Joint Operations Command mentioned on the time.
IS in 2014 declared a “caliphate” after capturing giant components of Iraq and Syria, starting a rule marked by atrocities.
Iraqi forces backed by the worldwide coalition defeated IS in late 2017. The group misplaced its final territory in Syria two years later.
The group has, nonetheless, maintained a presence in Syria’s huge desert, and in Iraq largely carries out assaults in rural areas.
About 2,500 American troops are deployed in Iraq, which now considers its safety forces able to confronting the jihadists.
The US and Iraq introduced in late September that the worldwide coalition would finish its decade-long army mission in federal Iraq inside a yr, and by September 2026 within the autonomous Kurdistan area.
