Iraq says Abu killed, US Denies

Baghdad Iraq’s Defence Ministry said yesterday that the deputy commander of the Islamic State group had been killed in an air strike in the north of the country, but the US military denied coalition air forces had conducted such an attack. The ministry said Abu Alaa al-Afari was killed in a coalition attack on a mosque where he was meeting with other militants. However, the US Central Command strongly denied that a coalition air strike had hit the mosque. It said it had no information to corroborate claims that the militant leader had been killed. More than 60 countries led by the United States launched a campaign last summer to “degrade and destroy” the ultra-radical Sunni Islamist group, which seized large areas of Iraq and Syria. The coalition has been conducting air strikes against Islamic State in both countries. “Based on accurate intelligence, an air strike by the coalition forces targeted the second in command of IS, Abu Alaa al-Badri,” the Iraqi defence ministry said in a statement on its website. Afari, whose real name is Abdul Rah man Mustafa Mohammed, is an ethnic Turkman from the town of Tel Afar in northwestern Iraq, and is thought to be second in command of Islamic State under self-proclaimed caliph Abu Bark al-Baghdadi. Meanwhile, on its website, the Iraqi defence ministry posted footage of what is said showed the air strike on the “Martyrs Mosque” in the village of al-Iyadhiya near Tel Afar, where Afar was a teacher and well-known preacher, according to a local official who requested anonymity. The Iraqi government has previously announced the death of Islamic State militants only for them to resurface alive.