September 4, 2014
An official who wished not to be named claims that a US bombing on an ISIS compound in Mosul has killed Abu Hajar Al-Sufi, a trusted lieutenant of Emir Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the self-proclaimed leader of the jihadist group calling itself “The Islamic State,” and two other senior members of the terrorist group. Abu Hajar Al-Sufi was an explosives expert and the military leader of Tal Afar, a district in the northwestern region of Iraq. The group was formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), before settling on the current incarnation of its name.
Most security experts agree that the deaths mark a harsh blow to the Islamic State just days and weeks after it released videos depicting the brutal beheadings of American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, respectively. The Islamic State has also threatened to execute a third man, David Haines, a British aid-worker and security expert, who was also kidnapped by the Islamic State. Director of Defense Press Operations and Pentagon spokesperson, Col. Steve Warren said in a statement that the US is not specifically targeting leaders of ISIS but that “if there were leaders inside [their] troop formations that have been attacked, then they will likely be killed.”
The news of this strike came just a day after Vice President Biden vowed that “[The United States] will follow [the members of the Islamic State] to the gates of hell…” during a speech at Portsmouth, New Hampshire. “The American people are so much stronger, so much more resolved than any enemy can fully understand. We don’t forget,” he declared.
The United States began carrying out precise airstrikes against the Islamic State after outrage spawned over the news of the brutal massacres of entire villages in Northern Iraq in June. Since they began in August, the United States has conducted more than 100 airstrikes on the Islamic State. Similar airstrikes may increase after President Obama faced criticism from congressional Republicans over his handling of the issue. Members from both sides of the aisle in Congress called on him to ramp up the United States’ offensive after the release of journalist Steven Sotloff’s murder. “Kill them. They’ve got to be destroyed. And you’ve got to have a goal, the president does, and we have to have a strategy to fit that goal and policies that will implement it. We have none of the above,” said Senator John McCain in an interview.
Despite these blows, the Islamic State’s leader, Emir al-Baghdadi, and Foley and Sotloff’s murderer, a terrorist labeled by many as “Jihadi John” for his English accent, remain at large.
Joshua Bi is the online editor of Pulse Magazine.