The Pentagon said Friday that it had killed ISIS’ No. 2 leader, Abd al-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli.
Defense Secretary Ash Carter told reporters that the US was ” systematically eliminating ISIL’s cabinet,” and added that Qaduli was “the second senior ISIL leader we’ve successfully targeted this month.”
CNN reported that al-Qaduli was involved in overseeing the terrorist group’s finances.
The Iraqi Defense Ministry had first claimed in July that a coalition air strike had killed Qaduli in Tal Afar in northern Iraq.
At the time U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the region, debunked the claim, saying it had “no information to corroborate” that ISIS’ second-in-command had been killed.
The U.S. Treasury labeled al-Qaduli “a specially designated global terrorist” in 2014. He also goes by 12 aliases including, Hajji Iman, according to the Treasury.
The U.S. State Department had offered a $7 million reward for information on al-Qaduli — the highest for any ISIS leader apart from al-Baghdadi, who is valued at $10 million.
The bounty unty makes al-Qaduli the sixth-most-wanted terrorist in the world, ranking only behind the likes of the heads of al Qaeda, ISIS and the Taliban’s Haqqani network.
Al-Qaduli was born in Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, in either 1957 or 1959.
He initially joined Al-Qaeda in Iraq – the group that would evolve into ISIS — in 2004, serving as a top deputy to then-leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and emir of the group’s Mosul branch.
He was captured and jailed by Iraqi authorities but was released in 2012, at which point he rejoined the terror group in Syria, according to the U.S. State Department.
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