BAGDAD – American air strikes on a joint mission with Iraqi forces killed the leading Islamic head of state in Iraq. This attack aimed to contain the group’s resurgence and seek retaliation for a deadly suicide attack in Baghdad last week.
ISIS commander Jabbar Salman Ali Farhan al-Issawi, known as Abu Yasser, was killed on Wednesday near the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, the American-led military coalition and Iraqi officials said on Friday.
The Islamic State no longer owns any territory in Iraq, but has continued to carry out deadly attacks. The question of what kind of violence is required to keep the group at bay has been at the center of the US and Iraqi negotiations to reduce the number of US troops in Iraq, and shows America’s role in the raid this week that Iraq continues to rely on the US US military.
A coalition spokesman, Colonel Wayne Marotto, described the death of Mr. al-Issawi as “a severe blow” to the efforts of the Islamic State to regroup.
Mr al-Issawi coordinated the group’s operations in Iraq, anti-terrorism experts said. Colonel Marotto said he was responsible for developing and disseminating guidance to ISIS fighters and for expanding ISIS presence in Iraq.
He said nine other ISIS fighters were killed in the operation.
Colonel Marotto said Iraqi counter-terrorism forces were leading the operation with the support of the coalition’s air, intelligence and surveillance coalition.
The American-led coalition has a policy not to comment on which countries are carrying out certain air strikes. But senior Iraqi security officials, who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to post the information, said US planes carried out the strikes.
Iraqi officials said the attack on an underground hideout avenged the deaths of 32 Iraqis killed in the ISIS attack on a market in Baghdad last week. More than 100 others were injured in the attack, the deadliest in Baghdad in four years.
ISIS took responsibility for the bombing, saying it was targeting Shiite Muslims and Iraqi security forces.
“We have promised and fulfilled,” Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi tweeted about the operation in which Mr al-Issawi was killed. “I gave my word to persecute Daesh terrorists. We gave them a thundering answer,” he said, using an Arabic acronym for ISIS.
Mr. al-Kadhimi, a former intelligence chief, also replaced several heads of intelligence and security operations following the ISIS attack, saying it was partly to blame for lax security and intelligence errors.
Mr. al-Kadhimi took office last year and pledged to strengthen security, fight corruption and implement government reforms.
Iraqi and American officials said the operation that killed Mr. al-Issawi lasted months as they approached lower-level ISIS leaders in mountain hideouts near Kirkuk and received information on what appears to be a new center of ISIS operations collected there.
Mr. al-Issawi, originally from the Iraqi city of Fallujah, returned to Iraq six months ago across the porous border to the Kurdish-controlled sector of eastern Syria.
In addition to the air strikes, the operation also included raids by Iraqi counter-terrorism forces in ISIS guest houses, according to an Iraqi military statement.
Although the last major ISIS attack in Baghdad took place two years ago, the group conducts regular operations in provinces further north.
“The information showed that this man was an active coordinator of Islamic state operations,” said Michael Knights, Jill and Jay Bernstein Fellow of Security and Military Affairs at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “Iraq is probably still the largest operating environment for ISIS, which effectively means he is the country manager of the largest subsidiary.”
At its height, ISIS controlled almost a third of Iraqi territory and all of Syria province after declaring a caliphate with Mosul as its capital in 2014. American-backed, Kurdish-led troops drove the group out of the last territory they owned two years ago, near the city of Baghuz in Syria.
The assassination of Mr. al-Issawi “shows the Iraqi people that the government is capable of effective action,” said Mr. Knights.
Crucial American aid in the raid came amid increasing political pressure from pro-Iranian groups in Iraq to evict US troops from the country.
After the recent cuts by the Trump administration, the United States still has about 2,500 soldiers on three Iraqi military bases. While Iraqi capabilities in the fight against ISIS have improved, the country still relies on intelligence, surveillance equipment and air support from the US-led coalition.
“From an operational standpoint, it is important that ISIS is disrupted as much as possible, but it obviously needs a lot of follow-up,” said Sajad Jiyad, an Iraq-based employee with the Century Foundation. “ISIS has shown that it is quite resilient and can show up in small cells, especially in rural areas and difficult terrain, and also targets areas that are very difficult for Iraqi forces to monitor.”
Mr Jiyad said he believed that helping US forces with operations against ISIS would gain goodwill. But he said the US drone attack that killed a senior Iraqi security officer along with Iranian commander General Qassim Suleimani in Baghdad last year had more weight in strengthening opposition to American forces in Iraq.
Following the drone attack, the Iraqi parliament passed a resolution calling on the government to evict American forces from Iraq. This step was not implemented.
“The presence of US forces is part of a larger problem unrelated to Daesh,” Jiyad said. “These kinds of things can’t just be washed away. The US has been helpful against ISIS.”
Eric Schmitt contributed to coverage from Washington.
