Iraqi Defense Ministry Says ISIS Deputy Leader Killed By Coalition Airstrike

The Iraqi Defense Ministry announced on Wednesday that Abu Alaa al-Afri, Islamic State (ISIS) second-in-command, was killed by a United States-led coalition airstrike in al-Ayiadiya, a village in northwestern Iraq near Tal Afar and Mosul.

Al-Afri, also known as Abdul Rahman Mustafa Mohammed, was supposedly meeting several other senior ISIS members, including the group’s supreme judge, in a mosque when the building was hit. Defense Ministry spokesman Brigadier General Tahsin Ibrahim said that many of those present were killed, although he did not confirm the number of casualties.

According to BBC, Atheel al-Nujaifi, the Governor of Nineveh (the province where the airstrike happened), said his contacts confirmed that al-Afri is dead and the strike occurred on Monday.

Neither the U.S. Departments of State or Defense have confirmed anything on the matter, but the Pentagon said Wednesday it had carried out a strike near Tal Afar to destroy “a militant fighting position and a heavy machine-gun.”

The Iraqi Defense Ministry posted the following video on its YouTube channel showing the airstrike:

Al-Afri has been reportedly serving as the acting leader of ISIS since Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the group’s emir and self-declared caliph, was allegedly injured by a coalition airstrike in western Iraq in March, although the Pentagon denies that he was ever hurt.

It was originally reported in April that al-Baghdadi was killed by the strike. Such an occurrence is not uncommon, as the Iraqi government has previously announced that ISIS leaders have been killed only to have them resurface, indicating that al-Afri could be alive.

Al-Afri’s death would hurt ISIS because he is one of the jihadist group’s most significant figures, who according to Middle East analyst and coauthor of ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror Hassan Hassan, “seems to have become more prominent in recent months, especially after the group began to suffer tactical defeats in Syria and Iraq since December. He replaced [Isis’s Syria governor] as al-Baghdadi’s top man after al-Baghdadi became less involved in decision making for security reasons.”

Born in 1957 or 1959, al-Afri was a former physics teacher in Mosul who traveled to Afghanistan in 1998 and joined al-Qaeda. He advanced through the ranks of the terror network, and it is believed that Osama bin Laden wanted him to become emir of al-Qaeda in Iraq – the precursor to ISIS – in 2010.

After being released from an Iraqi jail in 2012, al-Afri joined ISIS and held several high level positions in the organization before becoming its acting leader. Last week, the U.S. State Department said it would offer a $7 million reward for his capture.

If al-Afri is dead, ISIS will need to replace him with another acting leader. One possibility may be Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, a 38-year-old Syrian thought to be one of the group’s most powerful figures in Syria. Despite being young and Syrian when much of the ISIS leadership is Iraqi, he is a viable option. There are other potential replacements, although it is difficult to track between the group’s secrecy and the possibility of its leadership being killed by airstrikes.

While coalition airstrikes are killing ISIS leadership, the jihadist group is still functioning and trying to expand its caliphate in Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia. Furthermore, FBI Director James Comey recently warned of the group’s potential to recruit Americans and target the U.S. homeland.

Therefore, more military force will be needed to significantly push back ISIS and defeat it. While the alleged death of al-Afri is encouraging, it must be remembered that such actions will not achieve America’s ultimate objective regarding ISIS without a comprehensive strategy.