ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – The top Kurdish ISIS leader, reportedly responsible for the death of dozens of Kurdish civilians, was killed in coalition air strikes in Mosul, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) said Sunday. “Ziad Salim Mohammad Ali al-Kurdi, the top ethnically Kurdish ISIS leader, has been killed by US-led coalition airstrikes last night in Mosul,” the KRG’s National Security Council said in a statement. It said that al-Kurdi, who was “also known as Mansur, had joined the al-Qaida terrorist group in 2004,” and was arrested by coalition forces in 2006. It added that al-Kurdi was later affiliated with ISIS and “had been in charge of several military operations,” including assaults on the Kurdish towns of Gwer and Makhmur, some 80 kilometers south of Erbil. “Dozens of Kurdish civilians and Iraqi people have been murdered by al-Kurdi”, the statement said. Coalition airstrikes have been bombarding ISIS arsenals and positions in Syria and Iraq ahead of an impending attack on Mosul, which was captured by ISIS in June. Meanwhile, an official from the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) from Mosul told Rudaw Sunday that ISIS had executed 20 of its militants in Iraq who were trying to escape from the frontline and flee to Syria. “The fighters were trying to escape from a battle near Mosul on Saturday,” he said. “All the militants were reportedly from Iraq and were killed by ISIS foreign fighters,” he added. Coalition airstrikes on ISIS bases and troops near Mosul on Saturday reportedly led to the deaths of several ISIS militants.
