Islamic State leaders killed in airstrikes

ReutersA U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle from the 48th Fighter Wing lands at Incirlik Air Base, Turkey, November 12, 2015.

French news reports, citing unidentified law enforcement officials, identified Mouadan as a French national of Moroccan descent who grew up in the Paris suburbs and was 26 or 27 years old.

WASHINGTON-An associate of the ringleader of the Paris terror attacks was killed in a USA airstrike in Syria, eliminating an Islamic State operative who had connections in Europe and was planning further attacks against the West, the Pentagon said Tuesday.

The source close to the investigation, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the link between al Mouadan and Amimour and said one could assume Mouadan also knew Ismail Omar Mostefai, a Frenchman of Algerian descent who was another of the attackers of the Bataclan concert hall and died there. Abaaoud was killed during a police raid five days after the Paris attacks.

He was “actively planning additional attacks against the West” and was killed in an airstrike over Syria on Thursday, Warren told reporters.

In addition to al Mouadan, US airstrikes also killed a member of the Islamic State’s external operations group in Mosul, Iraq, on December 26.

“We still have a fight ahead of us”, he said.

Though the men targeted and killed in the strikes appear to be mid-level operatives, several were charged with “external operations”, and one, a Syria-based Bangladeshi, Siful Haque Sujan, killed near Raqqah, Syria, supported the group’s “hacking efforts, anti-surveillance technology and weapons development”.

Mouadan was one of 10 IS leaders killed by the US-led coaltion in Syria in the past month in a number of air strikes.

“Now that he’s dead, ISIL has lost a key link between their networks”, Col. Warren said.

“Any organization that sees its middle and upper management degraded in this way is going to lose some of their synergy”, Warren said.

However, Warren acknowledged Tuesday that, “We have not severed the head of this snake yet, and it has still got has fangs”.

Scott Stewart, of the global intelligence agency Stratfor, said although the Islamic State is known to recruit aggressively, taking out its leaders is an important step in crippling the group.

The US has since August 2014 led an worldwide coalition attacking the IS group in Iraq and Syria.

If the Anbar provincial capital can be fully secured and re-populated, it would be the first major success for the US-trained force that fled 18 months ago as jihadist Islamic State militants surged through northern and western Iraq.