Islamic State finance chief, Abu Saleh has been killed in Iraq last month, the US military said on Thursday, December 11 hailing it as another scalp in its bid to shatter the extremists’ financial network.Abu Saleh was killed along with two associates as part of the US-led coalition’s campaign to destroy the extremists’ financial infrastructure, said Brett McGurk, Washington’s envoy for the anti-IS fight, on Twitter.
Confirmed: Death of #ISIL finance minister Abu Saleh & 2 associates as part of coalition campaign to destroy ISIL’s financial infrastructure
— Brett McGurk (@brett_mcgurk) December 10, 2015 Who is Abu Saleh?
His real name was Muwaffaq Mustafa Muhammad al-Karmush. Abu Saleh is described on the US State Department’s terrorist blacklist as a 42-year-old Iraqi. He was the third member of the finance network to be killed.
Representational image | Source: Reuters
US military spokesman Colonel Steve Warren called him as one of the most senior and experienced members of the group. “Killing him and his predecessors exhausts the knowledge and talent needed to coordinate funding within the organization,” Warren said, adding that two other men pivotal in IS fundraising networks also were killed in coalition air strikes in Iraq in late November.
Who were the other two killed?
They were identified as Abu Mariam, an enforcer and senior leader in the IS group’s extortion networks, and Abu Waqman al-Tunis, who Warren said coordinated the group’s transfer of people, weapons and information.
Abu Mariam appears on the State Department terrorist list as Mounir Ben Dhaou Ben Brahim Ben Helal, a 32-year-old Tunisian.
The coalition has been targeting IS leaders in Syria and Iraq with air strikes to try to pick apart its command structure.
US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter | Source: Reuters
After the attacks in Paris last month, the United States said it was deploying a special-operations unit in Iraq that will be able to mount raids into Syria to capture or kill IS leaders. “We want this expeditionary targeting force to make ISIL and its leaders wonder when they go to bed at night: who’s going to be coming in the window,” US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter told a Senate hearing.
