UPDATED: Kurdistan says several IS senior leader killed in operations
A dead ISIS fighter
Erbil (IraqiNews.com) Kurdish security authorities said Monday they killed several senior Islamic State leaders in security operations in Mosul and Kirkuk.
The region’s counter-terrorism office said it killed Islamic State’s “health minister”, Salah al-Saqlawi, and other colleagues in a joint operation with the U.S.-led military coalition in Mosul, but did not specify the exact location of the operation’s target in Mosul.
Also Killed in the assault were Abu Bakr al-Shishani, a Russian national, and Abu Fatema al-Tunisi, a Tunisian national and an Islamic State senior finance official in Nineveh. The offensive killed 30 other militants, according to the authorities.
In Kirkuk, Kurdish authorities said a senior Islamic State leader was killed in a joint operation by Kurdish police forces and U.S.-led international coalition troops.
Eleiwi al-Hamadani, aka Abu Dhar, was killed by Kurdish homeland security forces from Erbil and coalition fighter jets.
Abu Dhar was the Islamic State’s “Zakat department” in Kirkuk’s Hawija, a body carrying the Islamic term for a mandatory charity payment, the authorities said.
Islamic State has lost many of its senior leaders and personnel since Iraqi government forces, backed by U.S.-led troops and volunteer militias, launched a major offensive in October 2016 to retake the city of Mosul, IS’s biggest stronghold in Iraq which fell to the extremist group in 2014. It has also been swept with internal disputes related to combat, and many of its members were either reported assassinated or executed for slacking combat performance.
Iraqi forces are currently starting a second phase of operations to free western Mosul from IS, having retaken the eastern region late January. After consummating the liberation of Mosul, the Iraqi government is expected to go for IS hideouts in Kirkuk, where the group is still strongly present in southwestern regions, most notably the town of Hawija.