US Department of Defense confirmed that Mahmoud al-Isawi, a Syria-based leader of the so-called ‘Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’ (ISIL) terrorist group was killed in an airstrike.

Isawi was killed by the US-led coalition forces in 2016, the US Department of Defense announced in a press release on Friday.

“A Syrian-based ISIL leader and facilitator, was struck and killed by a Coalition precision airstrike Dec[ember] 31, 2016, in Raqqa, Syria,” the release said.

According to the release, Al-Isawi was known to have facilitated trans-regional travel with the emir of ISIL Middle East attack network, Abd al-Basit al-Iraqi, who was killed in an a coalition airstrike on November 2, 2016.

Isawi was also a long-standing ISIL member who supported the organization’s media and intelligence structure in Fallujah before relocating to Raqqa. The Pentagon reaffirmed in the release its commitment to tracking and eliminating ISIL terrorists wherever they are hiding.

Source: Sputnik