ISIS spokesperson on Tuesday confirmed the killing of second in command, Abu Mutaz Al Qurashi of the jihadist organisation in a US air strike earlier this year.
Abu Mohamed al-Adnani without describing the circumstances in which Qurashi died said “America is rejoicing over the killing of Abu Mutaz al-Qurashi and considers this a great victory.”
In an audio recording posted on jihadist websites he said “I will not mourn him… he whose only wish was to die in the name of Allah… he has raised men and left behind heroes who, God willing, are yet to harm America.”
The White House, in an announcement on August 22, said that Qurashi, whose real name is Fadhil Ahmad al-Hayali, was killed on August 18 in a US air strike near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.
It said the strike targeted a vehicle and also killed an ISIS “media operative” known as Abu Abdullah.
At the time, Hayali was ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s senior deputy, US National Security Council said.
The White House described Hayali as “a primary coordinator for moving large amounts of weapons, explosives, vehicles and people between Iraq and Syria”.
In August, the White House also announced that Hayali “was in charge of ISIL operations in Iraq.
Like many senior Iraqi jihadists, before joining ISIS, Hayali had been a member of Al-Qaeda’s Iraqi faction. He was reportedly a former Iraqi officer from the era of Saddam Hussein.
ISIS controls large belts of Syria and neighboring Iraq and has set up an Islamic “Caliphate“.
Beginning in Mosul, the country’s second city and capital of Nineveh province, they swept security forces aside and eventually overran around a third of the country.