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NBC News reported that the right hand man of the leader of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) was killed in an airstrike along with two additional senior leaders of the terrorist organization. However there is still some debate over exactly who was killed during the attack and which warplanes were employed at the time.
NBC reported that intelligence confirmed that American warplanes carried out the operation while the Iraqi military asserted that it was their aircraft that organized and executed the attack. Arm Babaker, Iraqi Army General Zebari told Agence France Press that they had eliminated a member of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (leader of ISIS)’s inner circle. However there are still some more investigation to be done regarding this operation.
There are even some rumors surrounding the attack that al-Baghdadi himself was killed in the airstrike, but the Pentagon confirmed that such rumors are highly unlikely to be true. Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesperson expressed that they cannot confirm the killed targets at this stage and that the U.S. air force had not targeted such figures as senior leaders of ISIS. However, if such leaders were among “troop formation” at the time of the air strike, then there is the likelihood that they could have been killed.
Regardless of who killed who during this operation, if the airstrike did kill 3 senior leaders of ISIS, then it is at least a minor victory for the U.S. and the Iraqi and Kurdish forces who have been fighting since August. However, ISIS still holds a great advantage in the conflict, with hundreds of thousands of active militants with more streaming in from around the world, and earning huge sums of money every day selling oil and hostages.
After the beheading of journalist Steven Sotloff, the Obama administration began to express that the U.S. must do more to deter the conflict in Iraq and Syria. At the NATO summit meeting in Wales this Friday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry announced a plan to develop a coalition of ten nations including the U.S. Canada, France, Germany, Turkey and the United Kingdom to combat ISIS.
Meanwhile back in the United States, though it is still unclear whether America will approve the deployment of ground troops in Iraq and Syria, President Obama is looking to receive congressional approval to extend U.S. airstrikes against ISIS in Syria.
