(MENAFN- Arab Times) The second-in-command of the Islamic State militant group was killed during a US air strike in Iraq on Tuesday, the White House said on Friday, dealing a blow to the group that has sought to form a caliphate across the Muslim world. "Fadhil Ahmad al-Hayali, also known as Hajji Mutazz " was killed in a US military air strike on August 18 while traveling in a vehicle near Mosul, Iraq, along with an ISIL media operative known as Abu Abdullah," White House spokesman Ned Price said in a statement. "(His) death will adversely impact ISIL's operations given that his influence spanned ISIL's finance, media, operations, and logistics," Price said, referring to the group by an acronym.
The White House said the dead leader was a "primary coordinator" for moving weapons, explosives, vehicles, and people between Iraq and Syria. He was in charge of operations in Iraq and helped plan the group's offensive in Mosul in June of last year.
The United States and its allies stage daily air strikes on Islamic State targets in the group's self-declared caliphate based in Iraq and Syria. A drone strike last month killed a senior Islamic State leader in its Syrian stronghold of Raqqa. Mutazz was a lieutenant colonel in the army of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and, like many who later went on to form the core of Islamic State's leadership, was detained by US troops in Iraq at the Camp Bucca detention facility, said Harleen Gambhir, a counterterrorism analyst at the Institute for the Study of War. It was likely after leaving Camp Bucca that he joined Islamic State's predecessor, al-Qaeda in Iraq, she said.
Gambhir expressed some puzzlement at the White House announcement, noting that US officials had in late 2014 said that they had killed Mutazz in an airstrike. One counter-terrorism specialist cautioned that the impact of the killing on Islamic State could be short-lived and noted how much territory it controls determines its power. "My experience in looking at the Islamic State suggests they have demonstrated " an ability to move people up into positions" when high-ranking operatives are killed, said Seth Jones, a former Pentagon official now at the RAND Corporation. A US official acknowledged that, but said the death was damaging to the group's reputation. "The death of Mutazz removes a key figure from ISIL and further pierces the group's veneer of invincibility that it has sought to cast," the official said.
Meanwhile, the United States and its partners launched 33 air strikes on Thursday against Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq, the Combined Joint Task Force leading the operations said. Twenty-three air strikes in Iraq targeted the militant group in 10 cities, while 10 air strikes in Syria took aim at the group in four cities, the task force said in a statement released on Friday.
In related news, Denmark's foreign minister says the Scandinavian nation is briefly pulling back its Kuwait-based fighter jets that are taking part in the international coalition airstrikes against the Islamic State group to repair them and allow the staff to recover. Kristian Jensen said Saturday the four operational F-16 fighter jets and three reserve jets are expected to be back in action in 2016. It was not immediately clear when the fighter jets would return to Denmark. Last month, Danish plane mechanics warned against extending Denmark's oneyear mission with Operation Inherent Resolve, saying staff members were stressed and some of the planes had cracks. Denmark joined the mission in October 2014 and its jet fighters have flown more than 470 missions, according to the supreme military commanding authority.
Tests
Elsewhere, Preliminary tests show traces of the chemical agent sulfur mustard on mortars that Islamic State group militants used to attack Kurdish forces in Iraq, a senior US military officer said Friday. US Brig Gen Kevin Killea, chief of staff for military operations in Iraq and Syria, said the field testing was not conclusive, so final tests are underway to learn the full make-up of chemicals on the fragments. US officials have been looking into reports that IS used the chemical weapon mustard gas in the Aug. 11 attack in Makhmour. Similar reports have surfaced in recent months, including in connection with an attack by Islamic State militants in neighboring Syria.
Killea told Pentagon reporters that Kurdish forces brought the mortar fragments to US forces for testing, so there may be questions about the chain of custody of the evidence. It is unclear where IS might have obtained chemical weapons. Diplomatic efforts by the US and Russia following a chemical weapons attack in Syria in 2013 led to the removal or destruction of the Syrian government's chemical weapons stockpiles. But questions remain about whether some of those chemicals escaped destruction or if militants have been able to obtain them in other ways. US officials have expressed concerns about the possibility that IS would locate and use chemical weapons in its campaign to take control of more territory across Iraq and Syria. US and coalition partners are supporting Iraqi and Kurdish forces on the ground in Iraq, largely through airstrikes and a train and equip program. But there have been discussions among top military and defense leaders about using additional US forces in Iraq, possibly to help direct airstrikes or to embed with Iraqi units to better train and advise them.
The use of chemical weapons by IS adds another element of risk to troops and could further complicate the debate. In other news, Islamic State extremists in Syria and Iraq are engaged in the "most brutal, systematic" destruction of ancient sites since World War II, the head of the UN cultural agency said Friday € a stark warning that came hours after militants demolished a monastery with ancient foundations in central Syria. The world's only recourse is to try to prevent the sale of looted artifacts, thus cutting off a lucrative stream of income for the militants, UNESCO chief Irina Bokova told The Associated Press. Recent attacks have stoked fears that IS is accelerating its campaign to demolish and loot heritage sites.
On Friday, witnesses said the militants bulldozed St. Elian Monastery which houses a 5th century tomb and served as a major pilgrimage site. Days earlier, IS beheaded an 81-year-old antiquities scholar who had dedicated his life to overseeing the ruins of Palmyra in Syria, one of the Middle East's most spectacular archaeological sites. Since capturing about a third of Syria and Iraq last year, IS fighters have destroyed mosques, churches and archaeological sites, causing extensive damage to the ancient cities of Nimrud, Hatra and Dura Europos in Iraq. In May, they seized Palmyra, the Roman-era city on the edge of a modern town of the same name. "We haven't seen something similar since the Second World War," Bokova said of the scope of the IS campaign against ancient sites. "I think this is the biggest attempt, the most brutal systematic destruction of world heritage." Bokova said recent images of archaeological sites under IS control in Iraq and Syria show signs of widespread illegal digging and looting. "If you look at the maps, the photos, the satellite pictures of it, you will not recognize one place," she said. "It is just hundreds of holes all around them." There is very little the world can do to stop the extremists from inflicting more damage, she said, but stopping the trafficking in artifacts must be a priority. Bokova spoke hours after IS posted photos on social media showing bulldozers destroying the St Elian Monastery near the town of Qaryatain in central Syria. The group had captured the town in early August.
A Qaryatain resident who recently fled to Damascus said militants leveled the shrine and removed church bells. The man, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear his relatives still in Qaryatain might be harmed, called on the United Nations to protect Christians and Christian sites. Osama Edward, the director of the Christian Assyrian Human Rights Network, said shelling of the area by Syrian government troops over the past two weeks had already damaged the monastery. "DAESH continued the destruction of the monastery," said Edward, using an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group. A Catholic priest, the Rev Jacques Mourad, who had lived at the monastery, was kidnapped in May and remains missing. According to Edward, Mourad sheltered both Muslim and Christian Syrians fleeing the fighting elsewhere in Homs province. Activists said that shortly after capturing Qaryatain, the Islamic State group abducted 230 residents, including dozens of Christians. Activists said some Christians were released, but the fate of the others is still unknown. Bokova said in a statement that "the intentional targeting and systematic destruction of the cultural heritage of Syria is reaching unprecedented levels" and that the militants' campaign "testifies of an ideology of hatred and exclusion." In another attack, IS militants beheaded Palmyra scholar Khaled al-Asaad on Tuesday, hanging his bloodied body from a pole in the town's main square. Al-Asaad, a long-time site director, had refused to leave Palmyra after it was overrun by IS. Bokova told AP that she believes al- Asaad was "brutally murdered" because he refused to divulge where authorities had hidden treasures secreted out of Palmyra before the IS takeover. She would not say whether UNESCO was aware of where the artifacts were taken, saying only "we hope they are in safe places."
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