ERBIL, Kurdistan Region—The US-led anti-ISIS coalition announced that they have killed a prominent leader of the radical group in an air strike in Mosul.
Rachid Kassim, one of the group’s most notorious members who is a French national and believed to have masterminded some of the Paris terrorist attacks was killed near Mosul, the coalition said.
The air strike that killed Kassim was said to have been carried out in the past three days.
“We are currently assessing the results of the strike and will provide more information when it becomes available.” US Marine Corps Major JT Rankine-Galloway, a Pentagon spokesman, said.
The eastern side of Mosul has been cleared of ISIS since early January and most coalition air strikes and Iraqi attacks are directed at the western bank of the city where the militants are expected to put up fierce resistance.
Iraqi and coalition leaders are speculating the whereabouts of the ISIS leader Abubakir al-Baghdadi himself as his group is being pushed back on all fronts in Iraq and Syria.
Other senior ISIS figures have been killed in targeted strikes in recent days.
One was a Kurdish national known as Abu Ali al-Kurdi.
"At 4 p.m. on Wednesday, Walid Sarhan al-Kurdi known as Abu Ali al-Kurdi, an ISIS Sharia leader from Tel-Kaif, the area [north of Mosul], was killed in Mosul's al-Zanjili neighborhood, western Mosul," said Kurdistan Region Security Council (KRSC) in a statement.
