The U.S.-led military coalition against the Islamic State killed a main leader in Syria who had direct relations with the terrorists who carried out the attacks in Paris and was planning more attacks against the West, the Pentagon said Tuesday.
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Steve Warren identified the man as Charaffe al Mouadan, a Syrian-based operative who was linked to Abdel Hamid Abaaoud, leader of the Paris attacks.
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Another was Abdul Qader Hakim, alleged by the United States to have facilitated IS external operations as well as having links to the Paris attack network.
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“My point is this: We will continue to hunt ISIL leaders who are working to recruit, plan and inspire attacks against the United States of America and our allies”, Warren said.
Warren said that part of the success in Ramadi and other areas was due to the killing of IS leaders.
Most of the 10 appeared to be mid-level leaders.
Mouadan, 26, was the son of Moroccan-born parents who grew up in the suburbs of Paris.
France started bombing Syria in the wake of the Paris attacks, but Mr Warren would not say if Paris was involved in the strike against Mouadan.
Mouadan was killed on December 24 in Syria, coalition forces announced Tuesday, BBC News reported.
“The leadership size of the Islamic State is relatively large”, said Max Abrahms, a political science professor at Northeastern University and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Mouadan was planning further attacks against Western countries, Warren said.
“We’re striking at the head of this snake”, he added, but “we haven’t severed the head yet, and it still has fangs”, he said. The Paris official was not authorized to discuss the case, so spoke on condition of anonymity. “There’s much more fighting to do”, Warren said.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi (C, back to camera) holds an Iraqi flag in the city of Ramadi, December 29, 2015.
· The coalition killed Mithaq Najim, ISIS’s deputy emir in Kirkuk Province, near Hawijah, Iraq also on Dec 9.
When the U.S. left Iraq in 2011, the army they left behind was trained for counter-insurgency, not conventional warfare, so it was easily defeated by IS forces, Warren explained.
The Iraqi army’s seizure of the center of Ramadi on Sunday is its first major victory against the hardline Sunni extremists that swept through a third of Iraq in 2014, and came after months of cautious advances backed by coalition air strikes.
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Thursday, he’d pronounced the visit to Ramadi himself and declared a national holiday in party, despite the fact that security forces must remove explosives planted through the city and clear out combatants in some thickly built up places.
