BAGHDAD, Iraq — Iraqi forces and U.S. soldiers have killed a top ISIS commander wanted by Washington and other prominent militants, the Iraqi military said Friday.
The operation in western Iraq’s Anbar province began in late August, the Iraqi military said, and involved members of Iraq’s National Intelligence Service and the country’s air force.
Among the dead was a Tunisian-born ISIS commander known as Abu Ali Al-Tunisi, for whom the U.S. Treasury Department had offered a reward of up to $5 million for information about his whereabouts. Ahmad Hamed Zwein, a deputy commander of ISIS in Iraq, was also killed.
Despite their defeat, attacks by ISIS cells in Iraq and Syria have been on the rise in recent years, killing hundreds of people.
Friday’s announcement was not the first news of the raid.
Five of the U.S. soldiers were wounded during the operation, while two others suffered injuries from falls.
One of them was transported out of the region, and one of the injured was evacuated for further treatment, a U.S. defense official said at the time, speaking on condition of anonymity to provide details.
In Friday’s announcement, the Iraqi military said weapons, computers, phones and 10 explosive belts were also seized in the raid.
They also said 14 ISIS commanders were identified after DNA tests were performed. They did not mention the 15th person killed or whether that person had already been identified.
ISIS seized territory at the height of its power and declared a caliphate across large swathes of Iraq and Syria in 2014, but was defeated in Iraq in 2017. In March 2019, the extremists lost the last swathe of land they once controlled in eastern Syria.
