Ten of the group’s higher-ups, including one with “direct” ties to the alleged mastermind of the Paris attacks, were killed in airstrikes in December alone, the US military claimed.
According to analysts, these deaths chip away at ISIS “middle-management” — seasoned and skilled commanders within the group.
“Because of their operational role and their experience, these figures are an invaluable human resource and a huge loss for ISIS,” said Mathieu Guidere, a terrorism expert at the University of Toulouse.
Instead of focusing on ISIS’s political chiefs the US-led coalition has targeted “technical cadres and the mid-level commanders who, though they don’t take the decisions, execute them,” said Guidere.
“Without them, nothing could be done on the ground.”
Most of the commanders were killed in Iraq, where Washington is working with government forces, but others were targeted in Syria.
The dead include Charaffe el Mouadan, who had ties to the Paris attacks “cell leader” Abdelhamid Abaaoud and was killed in a coalition strike in Syria on December 24, according to the Pentagon.
Yunis Khalash, ISIS’s “deputy financial emir” in the group’s Iraqi stronghold Mosul, was killed on December 9, it said.
“His death will burden senior ISIL (ISIS) cadres to find a technically skilled and trustworthy replacement,” claimed US-led coalition spokesman Colonel Steve Warren; AFP reported.
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