BAGHDAD—A joint U.S.-Iraqi military strike killed the top leader of Islamic State in Iraq this week, setting back the extremist group’s local leadership as it attempts to stage a bloody resurgence, American and Iraqi officials said Friday.
The air-and-ground operation on Jan. 27 near the northern city of Kirkuk killed 10 Islamic State members, including Abu Yasir al-Issawi who led the organization in the country, according to the officials.
A U.S.-led coalition airstrike struck the group’s hideout in a network of caves, which was followed by an Iraqi ground attack on the area, said Sabah al-Numan, spokesman for Iraq’s counterterrorism forces. Some Islamic State fighters detonated explosive vests while others were shot dead, he said.
The operation took place less than a week after Islamic State carried out its worst attack on Iraqi civilians in years, a double suicide bombing on a busy Baghdad street that killed 32 people.
“Yasir’s death is another significant blow to Daesh resurgence efforts in Iraq,” said Col. Wayne Marotto, the spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State, using the Arabic acronym for the group, in a tweet.
Officials said the operation hurt the group’s ability to regroup and reassert itself, after months in which it has carried out increasingly deadly hit-and-run attacks on Iraqi and Syrian forces from its hide-outs in the desert that spans both countries.
The extremist group retreated into ungoverned spaces in both Iraq and Syria after it lost its last patch of territory in 2019 in Syria following years of a U.S.-backed military campaign and parallel efforts by Iranian-backed forces.
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