The Pentagon announced on Friday a senior Islamic State commander in Syria believed to be in line to lead the extremist group had been killed by the US.
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“Striking leadership is necessary, but it’s far from efficient”, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said at a news conference, adding that the U.S.is “systematically eliminating” ISIS’ cabinet.
Defence Secretary Ashton Carter said the deaths of Abdul Rahman The extremist strategy that thrives on chaos and disorder Ireland welcomed me but many more fellow Syrians need help Police arrest man with “case of explosives” Mustafa al-Qaduli and other members of the group’s “cabinet” would hamper its operations.
Asked about the impact of these killings, Carter said, “Leaders can be replaced”.
The mandate of the United States operation on al-Qaduli was to “capture or kill” and the mission become a kill operation when he opened fire on the U.S. helicopter.
Dunford said he expected to increase the level of US forces in Iraq from the current 3,800 and bolster the capabilities of Iraqi forces preparing for a major offensive against Islamic State in Mosul, but that those decisions had not been finalized.
The U.S. military has killed numerous Islamic State leaders in recent months.
Mr Carter was asked whether Al-Qaduli could have had a link to the November terror attacks in Paris or to this week’s bombings in Belgium and said he could not confirm a specific link to the Brussels attacks.
The US authorities had offered a reward of $US7million ($NZ10.4m) for Qaduli.
The ISIS leader was “also responsible for some external…plots”, Carter said, but could not be directly linked to this week’s terrorist attacks in Brussels.
Carter has also said the U.S.is looking at a number of options to “accelerate” the fight against IS.
“These leaders have been around for a long time”.
Abd al-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli is seen in an undated picture from the U.S. Department of State. They are senior, they’re experienced, and so eliminating them is an important objective and it achieves an important result.
He also confirmed the death of a second high-profile ISIS casualty this month, Georgian-born Tarkhan Batirashvili, known as Omar al-Shishani (Omar the Chechen), who was killed in a USA airstrike at the beginning of March.
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Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said recommendations on ways to increase US support for Iraq’s ground fight against IS are going to be discussed with President Barack Obama soon.
