U.S. troops working with Iraq’s intelligence and security services killed high-profile leaders of the ISIS terrorist group in an air strike in western Iraq, according to officials from both countries.
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani released a statement on X saying that Abdallah Makki Muslih al-Rifai, alias “Abu Khadijah”, is known as the “Califah Deputy” of the militant group and “one of the most dangerous terrorists in Iraq and the world”.
U.S. President Donald Trump posted on social media on Friday night, saying: “The fugitive leader of Iraq ISIS was killed. Our fearless fighters pursued him ruthlessly. Coordinating with the Iraqi government and the Kurdish regional government, his miserable life ended with another member of ISIS. Peace by force!”
The U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said the “Global ISIS #2 Leader, Emir of the Global Action and Delegation Committee” was killed with another ISIS operator during a precise strike in Iraq’s Al Anbar province on Thursday.
The U.S. and Iraqi forces found that the two ISIS members died at the scene of the strike. Both “wear unexploded “suicide vests” and possess multiple weapons,” according to the CentCom statement.
The statement said they “determined Abu Khadijah through a DNA match that collected from a raid that Abu Khadijah narrowly escaped.”
Centcom said that as the leader of ISIS in Iraq and Syria, Abu Khadijah “responsible for operations, logistics and planning of ISIS globally”. He also directed most of the financials for the group’s global organization.
“The Iraqis continue to achieve impressive victory in the power of darkness and terrorism,” Iraq’s Prime Minister al-Sudani said in a statement on X.
Before a series of failures of the U.S.-led coalition nearly six years ago, ISIS (also known as the “Caliphate”) occupied much of Syria and northern Iraq among its affiliates throughout Africa and Asia.
It organized a series of deadly terrorist attacks in European cities and remains active in terrorist organizations in more than a dozen countries, inspiring and supporting individuals and cells in Europe and Russia in recent years.
