Iraqi strikes killed senior ISIS leader: US

Iraqi airstrikes killed a senior ISIS leader and three other militants, the US military announced Friday, saying the strikes were enabled by intelligence from the international anti-extremist coalition.

“Iraqi security forces (ISF) conducted precision airstrikes in northeastern Iraq on Oct. 14 that killed four members of the terrorist organization ISIS, including a senior leader,” the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement on social media.

“The Iraqi-led strikes were conducted to disrupt and degrade ISIS attack networks in Iraq and were enabled by technical support and intelligence from coalition forces,” CENTCOM said.

It said the deceased leader was the group’s most senior official in northern Iraq, identifying him as Shahadhah Allawi Salih Ulaywi al-Bajjari and saying he was also known as Abu Issa.

Iraq’s Joint Operations Command had previously said in a statement that F-16 warplanes carried out strikes on October 14 in Kirkuk province that killed four militants, “one of them an important leader.”

The strikes came after US and Iraqi forces conducted a joint operation in late August that CENTCOM said killed 14 ISIS members, among them four leaders.

The United States has about 2,500 troops in Iraq and 900 in Syria as part of the coalition, which Washington and Baghdad announced last month will end its decade-long military mission in Iraq within a year.

The announcement followed months of talks between the United States and Iraq on the future of the coalition, which was established in 2014 to help local forces retake swathes of territory seized by the extremists there and in neighbouring Syria.

The coalition will continue its military operation in Syria, with international troops permitted to support anti-extremist operations there from Iraq until September 2026.

ISIS was defeated in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria in 2019, but extremist fighters continue to operate in remote desert areas although they no longer control territory.