US-led forces have killed 10 leaders of the self-styled Islamic State terrorists in airstrikes, including individuals linked to the Paris attacks, a US spokesman said, dealing a double blow to the militant group after Iraqi forces ousted it from the city of Ramadi.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi planted the national flag in Ramadi after the army retook the city center from IS, a victory that could help vindicate his strategy for rebuilding the military after stunning defeats, Reuters reported.
“Over the past month, we’ve killed 10 ISIL leadership figures with targeted airstrikes, including several external attack planners, some of whom are linked to the Paris attacks,” said US Army Colonel Steve Warren, a spokesman for the US-led campaign against the extremist group also known by the acronym ISIL.
One of those killed was Abdul Qader Hakim, who facilitated the militants’ external operations and had links to the Paris attack network, Warren said. He was killed in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Dec. 26.
Two days earlier, a coalition airstrike in Syria killed Charaffe al Mouadan, a Syria-based IS member with a direct link to Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected ringleader of the coordinated bombings and shootings in Paris on Nov. 13 which killed 130 people, Warren said.
Mouadan was planning further attacks against the West, he added.
Airstrikes on IS leadership helped explain recent battlefield successes against the group, which also lost control of a dam on a strategic supply route near its de facto capital of Raqqa in Syria on Saturday.
“Part of those successes is attributable to the fact that the organization is losing its leadership,” Warren said.
He warned, however: “It’s still got fangs.”
“Excited About This Victory”
The Iraqi Army’s seizure of the center of Ramadi on Sunday is its first major victory against the hardline militants who swept through a third of Iraq in 2014 and came after months of cautious advances backed by coalition airstrikes.
Three mortar rounds landed about 500 meters from Prime Minister Abadi’s location during his visit, security sources said. The prime minister was not in danger but was forced to leave the area, they said.
Arriving by helicopter in the shattered city west of Baghdad, Abadi traveled in a convoy of Humvees and met soldiers at the main government complex captured by counter-terrorism forces on Monday, where he planted the tricolor Iraqi flag.
He had announced the visit to Ramadi himself on Twitter and declared Thursday a national holiday in celebration, even though security forces must still remove explosives planted throughout the city and clear out fighters in some densely built-up areas.
Ramadi was the only city to have fallen under IS control since Abadi took office in September 2014.
