US airstrike kills top Islamic State leader in Iraq

US airstrikes in a joint mission with Iraqi forces have killed the top Islamic State group leader in Iraq, an attack aimed at stemming the group’s resurgence and exacting retribution for a deadly double-suicide bombing in Baghdad last week.

The Islamic State group commander, Jabbar Salman Ali Farhan al-Issawi, 43, known as Abu Yasser, was killed Wednesday near the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, US-led military coalition and Iraqi officials said Friday.

The Islamic State group no longer holds territory in Iraq but has continued to carry out deadly attacks. The question of what kind of force is required to keep the group in check has been at the heart of US and Iraqi negotiations over reducing the number of US troops in Iraq, and the US role in the raid this week illustrates Iraq’s continued reliance on the US military.

A coalition spokesperson, Col Wayne Marotto, called al-Issawi’s death “a significant blow” to the Islamic State group’s efforts to regroup.

Al-Issawi coordinated the group’s operations in Iraq, counterterrorism experts said. Marotto said he was responsible for developing and relaying guidance to Islamic State fighters and for helping to expand the Islamic State presence in Iraq.

He said that nine other Islamic State fighters were killed in the operation.

Marotto said that Iraqi counterterrorism forces led the operation with coalition air, intelligence and surveillance support.

The US-led coalition has a policy of not commenting on which countries conduct specific airstrikes. But senior Iraqi security officials, who asked not to be identified because they were not authorised to release the information, said that US aircraft carried out the strikes.

Iraqi officials said that the attack on an underground hideout avenged the deaths of the 32 Iraqis killed in the Islamic State attack on a Baghdad market last week. More than 100 others were wounded in the attack, the deadliest in Baghdad in four years.

The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the bombing, saying it was targeting Shiite Muslims and Iraqi security forces.

“We promised and fulfilled,” Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi tweeted about the operation that killed al-Issawi. “I gave my word to pursue Daesh terrorists, we gave them a thundering response,” he said, using an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group.

Al-Kadhimi, a former intelligence chief, also replaced several heads of intelligence and security operations after the Islamic State group attack, saying lax security and intelligence failures were partly to blame.

Al-Kadhimi took office last year pledging to strengthen security, fight corruption and push through government reforms.

Iraqi and US officials said the operation that killed al-Issawi was months in the making as they closed in on lower-level Islamic State group leaders in mountain hideouts near Kirkuk and gathered intelligence about what appeared to be a new centre of Islamic State group operations there.

In addition to the airstrikes, the operation included raids on Islamic State group guesthouses by Iraqi counterterrorism forces, according to an Iraqi military statement.

Al-Issawi, originally from the Iraqi city of Fallujah, crossed back into Iraq six months ago through the porous border with the Kurdish-controlled sector of eastern Syria.

Iraqi officials described al-Issawi as the “deputy caliph,” or second in command, to the top Islamic State group leader. That rank could not be independently confirmed.

Little is known about the overall head of the group, identified by the Islamic State group as Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, or its top command structure. Al-Qurayshi succeeded Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who died when he detonated a suicide vest as US forces raided his hideout in Syria in 2019.

While operational commanders like al-Issawi don’t get as much attention as top terrorist leaders like Baghdadi or al-Qurayshi, counterterrorism officials said they play pivotal roles.

“Militants like Baghdadi get the lion’s share of attention, but operatives like al-Issawi do the dirty work for groups like ISIS, and serve as the sinew between higher and lower echelons of the organization,” said Colin P Clarke, a counterterrorism analyst at the Soufan Group, a New York-based security consulting firm.

Although the last major Islamic State group attack in Baghdad was two years ago, the group carries out regular operations in provinces farther north.

“The intel showed that this guy was active as a coordinator of Islamic State operations,” said Michael Knights, the Jill and Jay Bernstein Fellow for security and military affairs at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “Iraq is still probably the largest operating environment for ISIS so it effectively means that he’s country manager of the largest subsidiary.”

At its height, ISIS controlled almost one-third of Iraqi territory and entire provinces of Syria after declaring a caliphate in 2014 with Mosul as its capital. US-backed, Kurdish-led forces drove the group out of the last piece of territory it held — near the city of Baghuz in Syria — two years ago.

The killing of al-Issawi “demonstrates to the Iraqi people that the government is capable of effective action,” Knights said.

The crucial US help in the raid came amid increased political pressure by pro-Iran groups in Iraq to expel US troops from the country.

After recent reductions by the Trump administration, the United States has about 2,500 troops left on three Iraqi military bases. While Iraqi capability in fighting the Islamic State group has improved, the country still relies on intelligence, surveillance assets and air support from the US-led coalition.

“From an operational point of view it’s important that ISIS is disrupted as much as possible but it obviously needs a lot of follow-up,” said Sajad Jiyad, an Iraq-based fellow with the Century Foundation. “ISIS has shown that it’s quite resilient and able to pop up in small cells, particularly in rural areas and in difficult terrain, and also targeting territory that is very difficult for the Iraqi forces to constantly police.”

Jiyad said he believed US forces would gain goodwill through their help in anti-Islamic State group operations. But he said the US drone strike that killed a senior Iraqi security official along with the Iranian commander Gen Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad last year carried more weight in bolstering opposition to US troops in Iraq.

After the drone strike, the Iraqi parliament passed a resolution demanding the government expel US forces from Iraq, a move that has not been implemented.

“The presence of US forces is part of a larger issue not related to Daesh,” Jiyad said. “These sort of things you can’t just wash away with ‘the US has been helpful against ISIS.’”

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