The second in command of the Islamic State was eliminated in northern Iraq earlier this week. This is what the White House confirmed a few hours ago.
Fadhil Ahmad al-Hayali, leader of Islamic State operations also known as Hajji Mutazz, was traveling in a vehicle near Mosul, the 18 last August, when he was eliminated in a US air strike. Hayali was one of the most influential and close figures to the leader of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, according to a statement by Ned Price, spokesman for the National Security Council. Like much of the Islamic State's high-level leadership, Hayali had also been an Iraqi army officer under Saddam Hussein. He was also a former member of the country's special forces.
During the American occupation of Iraq, he fought with Al-Qaeda in Iraq, a Sunni extremist group that was largely defeated during the last years of the war. Political instability, sectarian tensions and the civil war in Syria have allowed the former Iraqi leadership to rebuild itself as the Islamic state. Hayali was imprisoned in the Bucca prison camp (run by the United States), the main detention center for members of the Sunni insurgency. The same detention facility where Baghdadi was held. That prison would become an incubator of all al-Qaeda members in Iraq, which later evolved into the Islamic state.
According to reports from the White House - he was a primary coordinator for the movement of weapons, explosives, vehicles and personnel between Iraq and Syria. Hayali's role in the organization became clear in June last year, after Iraqi forces broke into the home of Abu Abdulrahman al-Bilawi, commander of the Islamic State, a few days before the fall of the northern city of Mosul. The Iraqi forces, at that juncture, gathered a real treasure in documents. Hayali was responsible for all the group's military operations in Iraq. His death is undoubtedly a blow to the Islamic State, although the leadership still remains well led and structured.
According to the Pentagon, Hayali's exit from the scene may not have a strong impact on the Islamic state's ability to conduct operations in Iraq and Syria.
