ERBIL, Kurdistan Region—Kurdish security officials said that Peshmerga forces had killed senior Islamic State (IS) commander Yasin Ali Suleiman Shlash known as Abu Abdullah near Khazir on Tuesday.
“He was killed with a number of other terrorists during a military operation by Peshmerga forces in coordination with the US air force to liberate Hassan Sham and its vicinities,” Kurdistan Region’s Security Council said in statement.
According to the statement, Abu Abdullah was a senior military commander and a top IS official in the state (Wilayat) of Mosul.
“Abu Abdullah was the mastermind behind the 2007 explosion in front of the ministry of the interior in Erbil,” said the security statement.
The Kurdish Security Council described Abu Abdullah, also known as Abu Sumaya, as a native of Mosul, 39 years old and former Arabic language teacher in Mosul.
“In 2010 he was arrested by the American forces and later transferred to the jurisdiction of the Iraqi government, where he was set free during the infamous Abu Ghraib jailbreak in 2013 and fled to Syria where he joined the Islamic State group,” read the statement.
Abu Abdulla is said to have had strong ties with the former Al-Qaeda leader in Iraq Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
The security statement said that Abu Abdullah was in charge of IS’s military operations in Nineveh and responsible for the abduction of many Yezidi women after the capture of Shingal last month.
