US commandos kill top ISIS ‘money man’ in Barack Obama’s final blitz on death cult in Syria
Abu Anas al-Iraqi was killed some 30 miles outside city of Deir Ezzor in eastern Syria, according to unnamed US official
A TEAM of elite US-led commandos has killed ISIS’s top money man in a dramatic raid in Syria.
A US defence official yesterday confirmed Abu Anas al-Iraqi was taken out by the Expeditionary Targeting Force in the eastern Syrian province of Deir Ezzor.
The operation on Sunday saw "senior operative" al-Iraqi – ISIS’s chief accountant – and another militant taken out as they travelled along an isolated highway.
The defence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the pair were some 30 miles outside the city of Deir Ezzor, which has been under siege by the jihadis since early 2015, when they were killed.
The official said the special operations raid was led by US forces, but commandos from other nations in the anti-IS coalition were present too.
According to , the men in the truck had opened fire on special operations helicopters that were tailing it.
The choppers fired back, killing the vehicle's occupants, ABC said.
The network quoted a counter-terrorism official as saying al-Iraqi was a "top" ISIS leader.
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Rumoured to have been killed some two years ago, the jihadi chief was in charge of overseeing the group’s dwindling finances.
It was revealed last week that the terror group had stopped paying its fighters in the besieged Iraqi city of Mosul as it comes under increasing pressure.
The successful operation to kill al-Iraqi represents a final strike at ISIS’s leadership by outgoing US President Barack Obama, who has built a reputation for taking out top terror bosses.
Aside from the killing of Osama bin Laden in May 2011, the long list of high-ranking fanatics to have bitten the dust during Obama’s presidency include ISIS propaganda chief Abu Mohammed Furqan and Hajji Mutazz, deputy to the group’s leader Abu Bakar al-Baghdadi.
The organisation’s second-in-command Abu Mohammad al-Adnani – thought to have been behind the Paris and Nice terror attacks – was also killed last year in a “major blow” to the jihadis.
The US government has not yet officially confirmed al-Iraqi’s death, saying only that there had been a “routine” operation that had been “successful” and didn’t involve rescuing hostages or capturing prisoners.
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