Al-Baghdadi’s Deputy Killed in Iraqi Airstrike

Assi Ali Nasser Al-Obeidi was killed in Iraqi airstrikes in Bervaneh region in Anbar province.

Assi Al-Obeidi was an Iraqi army colonel who was arrested after defecting the army. He escaped from Abu Ghraib in 2013, and later became ISIL Commander “Abu Omar Al-Obeidi”.

Originally from Hawija, Kirkuk, Al-Obeidi headed the Chief of Staff of ISIL’s Military Council.

Many senior ISIL commanders, including al-Baghdadi’s top deputy Abu Ali al-Anbari, have been killed in the Iraqi army attacks on the terrorist group’s positions in Iraq over the past few months.

Other ISIL commanders killed in the Iraqi airstrikes in the last few months included Abu Ala’a al-Ofri and Abu Hassan al-Sahabi, head of ISIL’s intelligence committee.

Yesterday, Iraqi Defense Ministry said “ISIL Spokesman Abu Mohammad al-Adnani was killed during the terrorist group’s offensive at the town of Barwani in Iraq’s Western territories”.

The ISIL has not thus far issued any statement regarding al-Adnani’s fate.

In a relevant development in late November, the convoy of al-Baghdadi himself came under the Iraqi air force’s airstrike.

A military statement by the Iraqi Army announced that the Iraqi air force had bombed the convoy of al-Baghdadi while he was heading to Al-Karable to attend a meeting with ISIL commanders.

Al-Karable is the Subdistrict in the West of the Al Anbar province of Iraq, beside the Syrian border in an area of high ground.

Spokesman of Iraqi joint forces announced that the ISIL leader had been injured and over two dozen more Takfiri terrorists killed in the Iraqi army’s airstrike on their convoy in Anbar province.

Al-Baghdadi was injured in the Iraqi airstrike on his convoy and was transferred to another place by his forces, the spokesman said.

He also said that 25 other ISIL terrorists who were accompanying al-Baghdadi were killed in the airstrike.

Arabic-language media outlets said a special unit of Iraq’s air force known as the Falcons who have so far managed to kill several ISIL leaders in various operations, including an efficient attack on a number of top terrorist commanders on June 1, had done the airstrike.

Several ISIL commanders were killed in the June airstrike, including Abu Hareth Al-Shami, Abu Aeshe al-Ansari – an explosives expert – Moroccan national Abu Yousef Al-Jezrawi, Abu Hussein Al-Salmani who was in charge of ISIL’s Zakah (an Islamic tax system) issues, and Wa’d al-Latif Jom’eh al-Mohammadi who was in charge of ISIL’s suicide operation agents.