By Daily Mail (U.S.) | Created at 2025-03-15 11:25:06 | Updated at 2025-03-15 17:45:36
6 hours ago
One of Islamic State's top leaders in Iraq was 'relentlessly hunted down' and killed in a US-led airstrike on Friday, President Donald Trump has boasted.
Abdallah Makki Muslih al-Rifai, also known as Abu Khadijah, was considered one of the 'most dangerous terrorists in the world', according to Iraqi prime minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani.
The jihadist, sanctioned by the United States in 2023, was IS's so-called governor of the group's Syrian and Iraqi provinces and was responsible for foreign operations, he added.
Sudani did not say when Rifai was killed but praised the operation by Iraqi intelligence that was carried out in cooperation with the US-led anti-jihadist coalition in Iraq.
Trump then took to social media to boast of the killing, saying Rifai's 'miserable life had been ended'.
'Today the fugitive leader of ISIS in Iraq was killed,' Trump said on his Truth Social platform.
'He was relentlessly hunted down by our intrepid warfighters.
'His miserable life was terminated, along with another member of ISIS, in coordination with the Iraqi Government and the Kurdish Regional Government.'
Footage shared by US military shows the airstrike that reportedly killed a ISIS leader in Iraq
Trump (pictured on Friday) then took to social media to boast of the killing, saying Rifai's 'miserable life had been ended'
The US Central Command posted on X what appeared to be a video of the strike, which it said 'killed the Global ISIS #2 leader... and one other ISIS operative'
The US Central Command posted on X what appeared to be a video of the strike, which it said 'killed the Global ISIS #2 leader... and one other ISIS operative.'
It said that both fighters had been wearing unexploded 'suicide vests' and that it had identified Rifai through a DNA match.
The killing comes after Iraqi forces said it had eliminated nine IS group commanders in October last year.
General Michael Erik Kurilla, commander of the US Central Command, said: 'Abu Khadijah was one of the most important ISIS members in the entire global ISIS organization.
'We will continue to kill terrorists and dismantle their organizations that threaten our homeland and US, allied and partner personnel in the region and beyond.'
They included the so-called governor of Iraq for IS, Jassim al-Mazrouei Abu Abdel Qader, Iraq's Joint Operations Command said at the time.
A masked Islamic State soldier poses holding the ISIL banner somewhere in the deserts of Iraq or Syria
Iraq's Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani (pictured) announced that the ISIS leader had been killed
IS in 2014 declared a 'caliphate' after capturing large parts of Iraq and Syria, beginning a rule marked by atrocities.
Iraqi forces backed by the international coalition defeated IS in late 2017. The group lost its last territory in Syria two years later.
The group has, however, maintained a presence in Syria's vast desert, and in Iraq largely carries out attacks in rural areas.
About 2,500 American troops are deployed in Iraq, which now considers its security forces capable of confronting the jihadists.
The US and Iraq announced in late September that the international coalition would end its decade-long military mission in federal Iraq within a year, and by September 2026 in the autonomous Kurdistan region.
