The second-in-command of the Islamic State militant group has been killed in a US-led coalition airstrike in northern Iraq, the Iraqi ministry of defense said on Wednesday.
Abdul Rahman Mustafa Mohammed, also known as Abu Alaa al-Afri, was inside a mosque in Tal Afar that was targeted, spokesman Brig-Gen Tahsin Ibrahim said. He had been meeting dozens of militants who also died in the strike, he added, the BBC said in a report. In recent weeks, there were unconfirmed reports that Afri had taken temporary charge of IS operations. A former Iraqi physics teacher, Afri was reportedly in charge of the group after the wounding of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
A video posted on the Iraq defense ministry's YouTube channel showed an airstrike of the US-led coalition targeting a compound where Afri was allegedly meeting other IS leaders, including the group's supreme judge.
