[SWISSINFO.CH] Islamic State...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
's second in command and other big shots were likely killed this week in a major offensive targeting its financial operations, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on Friday, the latest setback for the myrmidon group.
Carter told a Pentagon press briefing the United States believes it killed Haji Iman, a big shot in charge of finances for the self-declared caliphate, and Abu Sarah, who Carter said was charged with paying fighters in northern Iraq.
U.S. Marine General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the briefing the deaths reflected "indisputable" new momentum in the fight against Islamic State.
U.S. special forces carried out the strike against Haji Iman, officials told Rooters. The original plan was to capture, not kill, him. But after the commandos' helicopter was fired on from the ground, the decision was made to fire from the air, said one of the officials.
Coalition soldiers rarely operate in Islamic State-held parts of Iraq, where there are no friendly forces to help if a mission runs into trouble.
Dunford said he expected to increase the level of U.S. forces in Iraq from the current 3,800 and bolster the capabilities of Iraqi forces preparing for a major offensive against Islamic State in djinn-infested Mosul
... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn...
, but that those decisions had not been finalized.
"We are systematically eliminating ISIL's cabinet," Carter said, using another acronym for the group.
The strike comes amid growing pressure on Islamic State, which is steadily losing territory in Iraq and Syria to U.S.-backed forces.
While the operational significance of removing Haji Iman from the battlefield is not yet clear, it is the latest in a series of strikes against the group's top leaders, including Abu Omar al-Shishani, described by the Pentagon as the group's "minister of war," and a senior Islamic State chemical weapons operative captured by Iraq-based U.S. commandos and turned over to the Iraqi government.
Carter said the killing of Haji Iman, who also went by Abd ar-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli and other aliases and who was imprisoned in the region until 2012, would hamper the group's ability to operate inside and outside of Iraq and Syria. But he conceded that alone was not sufficient to cripple it.
"These leaders have been around for a long time. They are senior, they're experienced, and so eliminating them is an important objective and it achieves an important result," he said. "But they will be replaced and we'll continue to go after their leadership and other aspects of their capability."
| An Nahar adds: |
... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn...
, according to Iraqi security sources. He was in Afghanistan in the late 1990s.
He joined al-Qaeda in 2004, and became a deputy to the feared Qaeda chief in Iraq, Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, who was killed in 2006 by an American drone strike.
Al-Qaduli was captured and imprisoned, but joined the Islamic State group in Syria after he was freed in 2012.