A leader of the Islamic State jihadist militia has been killed in an airstrike in Iraq, according to reports from Washington and Baghdad. Makki Muslih al-Rufaji was "one of the most dangerous terrorists in Iraq and around the world," Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani wrote on the social media platform 'X' on Friday.
Al-Rufaji, who was sanctioned by the US in 2023, was, according to the Iraqi prime minister, the so-called governor of ISIS in the Syrian and Iraqi provinces. He was therefore also responsible for coordinating missions abroad, writes A2 CNN.
US President Donald Trump said the "miserable lives" of the IS leader and another jihadist were ended in coordination with the Iraqi government and the Kurdish regional government.
US Central Command released a video on 'X' purporting to show the airstrike in Al-Anbar province. According to it, al-Rufai was the number two in the world in the IS militia.
By 2014, IS had seized large swathes of Iraq and neighboring Syria, declared a caliphate, and spread fear and terror through its rule. In 2017, ISIS was defeated by Iraqi forces backed by a US-led military coalition. However, IS cells remain active in Iraq and carry out isolated attacks on soldiers and police officers.
As part of the US-led international coalition against the IS militia, 2,500 American soldiers are currently stationed in Iraq. In late September, the governments in Baghdad and Washington agreed that the anti-IS coalition would end its operations in Iraq within a year and also withdraw from the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq by September 2026. (A2 Televizion)
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