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Islamic State's No 2 leader killed in US airstrike

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Bloomberg
Last Updated : Aug 22 2015 | 10:39 PM IST
The second-in-command of Islamic State was killed by a US airstrike on August 18 while traveling in a vehicle near Mosul, Iraq, according to a White House statement.

Fadhil Ahmad al-Hayali, the senior deputy to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, "was a primary coordinator for moving large amounts of weapons, explosives, vehicles and people between Iraq and Syria," National Security Council spokesman Ned Price said in the statement Friday.

The effect of his death on the group's operations is apt to be limited, however, because Islamic State has developed a "deep bench" of military leaders, said Harleen Gambhir, a counterterrorism analyst who focuses on Islamic State at the Institute for the Study of War in Washington.

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First Published: Aug 22 2015 | 9:05 PM IST

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