An influential finance minister for Islamic State and a close advisor to the group’s leader, Abu Bakr Baghdadi, Qaduli died as special operations forces attempted to capture him in his vehicle, according to officials who were not authorized to speak publicly about the details of the mission. Qaduli had been monitored by U.S. surveillance for several days before the operation was launched, officials said.
The raid was part of what American officials are calling a new phase in the 18-month-old campaign to storm Islamic State compounds in a series of late-night raids with Iraqi and Kurdish forces. The operations have already killed or captured several top militants, and netted key sources of intelligence, including laptops and cellphones. Interrogations with captured militants have shed light on the shadowy group, U.S. officials said.
The intelligence has set off a domino effect in which one raid has led to others and provided targeting information for daily bombing runs that have blown up militant-held oil production sites and cash hoards.
“We’ve learned a great deal, and we continue to learn about who is who in ISIL, so we can kill them, about how they get their finances, so we can dry that up,” Carter said, using an acronym for Islamic State.
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