The head of the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria has been killed in Iraq in an operation by members of the Iraqi national intelligence service along with US-led coalition forces, the Iraqi prime minister announced on Friday.
“The Iraqis continue their impressive victories over the forces of darkness and terrorism,” Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani said in a statement posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Abdallah Maki Mosleh al-Rifai, or “Abu Khadija,” was “deputy caliph” of the militant group and as “one of the most dangerous terrorists in Iraq and the world,” the statement said.
Photo: AFP
On his Truth Social platform on Friday night, US President Donald Trump said: “Today the fugitive leader of ISIS in Iraq was killed. He was relentlessly hunted down by our intrepid warfighters” in coordination with the Iraqi government and the Kurdish regional government.
“PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH!” Trump posted.
A security official said the operation was carried out by an airstrike in Iraq’s Anbar province.
A second official said the operation took place on Thursday night but that al-Rifai’s death was confirmed on Friday.
They spoke on condition of anonymity, because they were not authorized to comment publicly.
The announcement came on the same day as the first visit by Syria’s top diplomat to Iraq, during which the two countries pledged to work together to combat IS.
Iraqi Minister of Foreign Affairs Fouad Hussein at a news conference said that “there are common challenges facing Syrian and Iraqi society, and especially the terrorists of IS.”
The officials had spoken “in detail about the movements of ISIS, whether on the Syrian-Iraqi border, inside Syria or inside Iraq” during the visit, he said.
Hussein referred to an operations room formed by Syria, Iraq, Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon at a recent meeting in Amman to confront IS, and said it would soon begin work.
The relationship between Iraq and Syria is somewhat fraught after the fall of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Al-Sudani came to power with the support of a coalition of Iran-backed factions, and Tehran was a major backer of al-Assad. Syrian interim president Ahmad al-Sharaa was previously known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani and fought as an al-Qaeda militant in Iraq after the US invasion of 2003, and later fought against al-Assad’s government in Syria.
However Syrian interim minister of foreign affairs Asaad Hassan al-Shibani focused on the historic ties between the two countries.
“Throughout history, Baghdad and Damascus have been the capitals of the Arab and Islamic world, sharing knowledge, culture and economy,” he said.
Strengthening the partnership between the two countries “will not only benefit our peoples, but will also contribute to the stability of the region, making us less dependent on external powers and better able to determine our own destiny,” he said.
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