Top Daesh leader killed in Syria, Pentagon says
WASHINGTON— The U.S. raid that killed the Daesh’s second-in-command is part of a new American offensive to wipe out the militant group’s top commanders, Defence Secretary Ash Carter said Friday.
Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli, also known as Abu Ala al-Afri and Haji Imam, was killed by U.S. special operations forces inside Syria during a raid Thursday against his vehicle, officials said.
A high-profile finance minister for Daesh, also known as ISIS or ISIL, and a close adviser to the group’s leader, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, al-Qaduli had been monitored by U.S. surveillance for several days before the operation was launched, according to officials who were not authorized to speak publicly about the mission. U.S. forces attempted to capture him alive, but were unable, officials added.
During a press briefing at the Pentagon Friday, Carter would not confirm how or where al-Qaduli died, but he characterized the raid as part of an ongoing U.S. military campaign to eliminate Daesh’s leadership structure in Iraq and Syria.
In addition to other attacks against Daesh commanders, the offensive includes daily airstrikes and a deployment of military advisers. The U.S. is also working to choke off militants’ profits from oil sales and for- eign donors.
“We are systemically eliminating ISIL’s cabinet,” Carter said.
Al-Qaduli, believed to be about 59 years old, initially joined Al Qaeda in Iraq in 2004, serving as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s liaison for operations with Pakistan. He’s had links to Daesh since it first emerged as the Al Qaeda franchise in Iraq after the U.S. invasion in 2003.
Al-Qaduli was held in U.S. custody at the Camp Bucca military prison in Iraq in 2006, along with many others who went on to senior positions in Daesh. He was released in 2012.
He rejoined the group in Syria in 2012 and was named “a specially designated global terrorist” by the U.S. government two years later.
He operated under at least 12 aliases. The $7 million bounty offered by the U.S. for his capture was the sixth highest reward for any terrorist. For Daesh members it was second only to $10 million for al-Baghdadi. The Iraqi Defense Ministry claimed al-Qaduli had been killed in July by an airstrike in Tal Afar in northern Iraq, but the U.S. military debunked the claim.
“The removal of this ISIL leader will hamper the organization’s ability for them to conduct operations both inside and outside of Iraq and Syria,” Carter said.
Carter also confirmed the death of another senior Daesh leader, Omar al-Shishani, or “Omar the Chechen,” who died in a separate airstrike on March14. He added that other recent strikes killed Abu Sara, a Daesh leader charged with paying fighters in northern Iraq, and other militants “who were directly involved in external plotting and training.”