Iraq says forces kill the leader of the senior Islamic State group

BAGHDAD – The Iraqi security forces killed a group leader of the Senior Islamic State (IS) responsible for foreign operations, according to the country’s prime minister, US President Donald Trump said that on Friday “his miserable life was ceased.”

Although Iraq proclaimed in 2017 the defeat of the jihadist group on its territory, the cells remained active and perform sporadic attacks against the Army and Police in Iraq.

Abdallah Makki Muslih al-Rufayi “was considered one of the most dangerous terrorists in Iraq and the world,” said Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani on the social platform X.

The jihadist, sanctioned by the United States in 2023, was the so-called governor of the Syrian and Iraqi provinces of the group, which is transformed into the Iraqi prime minister.

Rufayi was also “responsible for foreign operations offices,” Sudani said.

He did not say when Rufayi was killed, but applauded the operation by Iraqi information that was carried out in cooperation with the US Anti-Jihadist Coalition.

“Today, the fugitive leader of ISIS in Iraq has been killed,” Trump said on his social platform.

“He was ceaselessly hunted by our fighters.

The central command of the US posted on X which seemed to be a video of the strike, which he said “killed Global Isis #2 Lead-er … and another ISIS operator.”

He said that both fighters wore unexploded “suicide news” and identified Rufayi through a DNA match.

Persistent presence

In October last year, Baghdad said Iraqi forces killed nine group commanders. They included the so-called Iraq governor for IS, Jassim Al-Mazrouei Abub Abbedel Qader, the order of joint operations in Iraq said.

In 2014 he said “Califat” after capturing large parts of Iraq and Syria, starting a rule marked by atrocities.

The Iraqi forces supported by the defeated international coalition is at the end of 2017. The group lost the last territory in Syria two years later.

However, the group has maintained a presence in the vast desert in Syria, and in Iraq it largely performs attacks in rural areas.

About 2,500 US troops are dislocated in Iraq, which now considers its security forces capable of experiencing Ji-Hadists.

The US and Iraq announced at the end of September that international coalition will end its ten-year military mission in Federal Iraq in a year, and until September 2026 in the Kurdistan region.