Two senior Islamic State commanders were killed in coalition airstrikes near Mosul, Iraq on June 25, the Pentagon confirmed Friday.
The Islamic State’s deputy minister of war, Basim Muhammad Ahmad Sultan al-Bajari, and military commander in Mosul, Hatim Talib al-Hamduni, were killed, according to a Pentagon official.
“These deaths are the latest in coalition efforts to systemically eliminate ISIL’s cabinet wherever they hide, disrupting their ability to plot external terror attacks and hold onto the territory they use to clam territory they use to claim legitimacy,” Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook said in a statement, using the Obama administration’s preferred acronym for the Islamic State.
The strikes come just days after Defense officials said the U.S. killed more than 250 Islamic State fighters. The Pentagon did not clarify if the two leader deaths happened in the same strikes.
Cook said allied troops have freed Fallujah, Iraq, from the Islamic State’s grip and have embarked on a new trajectory in the fight against the terrorist organization.
“Their deaths, along with strikes against other ISIL leaders in the past month, have critically degraded ISIL’s leadership ability in Mosul and removed two of their most senior military members in northern Iraq,” Cook said.
