A U.S. airstrike in Iraq this week killed the Islamic State terror network’s No. 2 leader, Pentagon officials said in a statement late Friday.
The death of ISIS’ chief of global operations and delegated committee emir, Abdallah Makki Muslih al-Rifai, also known as Abu Khadijah, is expected to be a major disruption to the terror group’s ability to plan and conduct operations. He also played a key role in the group’s global finance operations that have helped fund the organization, officials said.
Al-Rifai served as the group’s official leader of its Iraq province during the Islamic State’s peak period of power last decade, when it controlled significant portions of territory across both Iraq and Syria.
U.S. Central Command said that American forces, with cooperation from Iraqi services and intelligence services, conducted a precision airstrike Thursday in Iraq’s Anbar province targeting al-Rifai. Another ISIS operative was also killed in the operation, officials said.
In a Truth Social post, President Trump praised the strike.
“Today the fugitive leader of ISIS in Iraq was killed,” the president said. “He was relentlessly hunted down by our intrepid warfighters. His miserable life was terminated, along with another member of ISIS, in coordination with the Iraqi Government and the Kurdish Regional Government. PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH!”
In a post on X, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said “well done, CENTCOM,” and shared video footage that military officials say shows the strike on al-Rifai.
CENTCOM said that both ISIS figures were found at the scene wearing unexploded suicide vests and had multiple weapons. Officials said they were able to identify al-Rifai through a DNA match. U.S. personnel previously collected a DNA sample of his during another raid in which he narrowly escaped, CENTCOM said.
CENTCOM commander Gen. Michael E. Kurilla said in a statement that al-Rifai was “one of the most important ISIS members in the entire global ISIS organization.”
The strike against him is at least the second such U.S. operation targeting ISIS since Mr. Trump took office. The first, on Feb. 1, targeted ISIS figures in Somalia.
