US Claims Airstrike Kills Islamic State’s Second-in-Command

U.S. airstrikes raining on Iraq and Syria appear to have killed another top leader of the group known as the Islamic State.

Officials said Friday the man thought to be the Islamic State’s second-in-command, Fadhil Ahmad al-Hayali, was killed August 18 while traveling near the Iraqi city of Mosul. An Islamic State media operative known as Abu Abdullah also was killed.

“Al-Hayali’s death will adversely impact ISIL’s operations given that his influence spanned ISIL’s finance, media, operations, and logistics,” National Security Council spokesman Ned Price said in a statement, using an acronym for the group.

Even if al-Hayali is dead, there are questions as to how much it will actually impact the Islamic State’s operations.

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“Sometimes the elimination of certain top-level leaders does have a disproportionate impact because they bring a unique set of skills or connections to their job,” said Daveed Gartenstein-Ross at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

“But recent history cautions that leadership decapitation more often than not results in militant groups smoothly replacing those nodes in their networks,” he said.

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