OAK BLUFFS, Mass. (AP) – The No. 2 leader of the Islamic State militant group was killed in a U.S. military airstrike in Iraq earlier this week, the White House said Friday.
Ned Price, a spokesman for the White House National Security Council, said Fadhil Ahmad al-Hayali was traveling in a vehicle near Mosul, in northern Iraq, when he was killed Tuesday.
As the senior deputy to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, al-Hayali was the primary coordinator for moving large amounts of weapons, explosives, vehicles and people between Iraq and Syria, where IS militants control vast amounts of territory.
Al-Hayali oversaw the Islamic State in Iraq, where he planned operations during the past two years, including an offensive the group launched in Mosul in June 2014. He was a member of al-Qaida in Iraq, the predecessor group to the Islamic State.
Also killed in Tuesday’s airstrike was an Islamic State media operative known as Abu Abdullah.
Price characterized al-Hayali’s death as a blow to the organization because his influence spanned finance, media, operations and logistics for the group. But his removal from the scene is unlikely to affect IS operations or weaken the group and will most likely lead to even tighter security and secrecy around al-Baghdadi, whom Iraqi intelligence officials say has mostly kept out of sight since he was wounded in an Iraqi airstrike near the Syrian border.
The Islamic State leader uses hand-delivered mail to communicate with leaders of the group, shunning the use of more traceable telephones or email. He has recently, according to the officials, brought to his inner circle former fellow inmates from his time at the U.S.-run detention facility known as Bocca in southern Iraq, where he was held nearly 10 years ago.
One of the Iraqi officials said al-Baghdadi’s deputy was traveling in a white SUV with Abu Abdullah and two escorts when they were hit by the American airstrike at 8:30 a.m. local time. The two escorts were also killed, the official said.
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Hendawi reported from Baghdad. Associated Press writer Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad contributed to this report.