BAGHDAD, Iraq, Dec. 11 (UPI) — U.S.-led airstrikes killed the Islamic State‘s finance chief in November, the Pentagon announced Friday.
Muwaffaq Mustafa Mohammed al-Karmoush, better known by his code name, Abu Saleh, and two other senior IS leaders died in the coalition airstrikes. U.S. military spokesman Col. Steve Warren, speaking in Baghdad, confirmed the casualties.
Abu Saleh, an Iraqi national, was included on U.S. Treasury Department’s list of Counter-Terrorism Designations for his involvement with IS — also identified as Daesh, ISIL and ISIS.
“In late November, we killed Abu Saleh, the ISIL financial minister. He was one of the most senior and experienced members of ISIL’s financial network, and he was a legacy al-Qaida member. Saleh was the third member of the finance network that we have killed in as many months. Killing him and his predecessors exhausts the knowledge and talent needed to coordinate funding within the organization,” Warren said.
Of the other two deaths, Warren said, “Also in late November, we killed Abu Maryam, an ISIL enforcer and senior leader of their extortion network.”
“Maryam is the third senior extortionist we’ve killed recently. This is impairing ISIL’s ability to extort money from a civilian population. In another strike in the same timeframe, we killed Abu Rahman al-Tunisi. Rahman functioned as a sort of ISIL executive officer, coordinating the transfer of information, people and weapons,” he said.
Warren did not specify where the attacks occurred.
Earlier this week the Pentagon said senior IS leader Abu Nabil was killed in an airstrike in Derna, Libya on Nov. 13.
