According to the Combined Joint Task Force - Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF-OIR) statement released on Friday evening. Ahmad ‘Isa Ismail al-Zawi, otherwise known as Abu Ali al-Baghdadi, was the leader of ISIS in North Baghdad, and Ahmad ‘Abd Muhammad Hasan al-Jughayfi, a senior supplies and logistics leader across Iraq and Syria, were killed in the May 17 operation.
"The removal of these ISIS leaders will disrupt future attacks against innocent civilians and our security partners and in the region," the statement read.
The deaths of Zawi and Jughayfi deals yet another blow to the extremist militant group after the recent transport of senior ISIS leader Nasser al-Qardash to Iraq after being held in detention by the Kurdish-led SDF in eastern Syria for a year. His transfer to Iraq was announced by the Iraqi Intelligence Service on Wednesday.
ISIS controlled vast swathes of Iraq and Syria at the height of its power between 2014 and 2016. Though the group was declared defeated in Iraq in December 2017 and in Syria in March 2019, the group have maintained the ability to carry out insurgent attacks including kidnappings, killings and ambushes, particularly in rural areas - as reiterated by a Pentagon report on the group's activities published last week.
Though the deaths and detentions of high-profile figures leave a "surely weakened" ISIS, they are not enough to definitively destroy the group, security analyst Husham al-Hashimi told Rudaw on Thursday.
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