The Islamic State’s second-in-command, Abu Mutaz al-Qurashi, was killed in a US air strike earlier this year, the group’s spokesman has confirmed, according to a report in The Times of India.
“America is rejoicing over the killing of Abu Mutaz al-Qurashi and considers this a great victory. I will not mourn him...he whose only wish was to die in the name of Allah...he has raised men and left behind heroes who, God willing, are yet to harm America,” Abu Mohamed al-Adnani said in an audio recording posted on jihadist websites.
Although Adnani did not say in what circumstances Qurashi died, the US had confirmed in an August 22 announcement that he had been killed on August 18 in a US air strike near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.
The US National Security Council had previously described Qurashi, whose real name was Fadhil Ahmad al-Hayali, as IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s senior deputy, a member of the IS ruling council and “a primary coordinator for moving large amounts of weapons, explosives, vehicles and people between Iraq and Syria”.
Hayali had been a member of al-Qaida’s Iraqi faction before joining the IS, like many other senior Iraqi jihadists. He was reportedly a former Iraqi officer from the Saddam Hussein era.
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