US airstrike kills two ISIS leaders

U.S. forces killed two Islamic State in Iraq and Syria military commanders in an airstrike last week in Iraq, the Pentagon announced Friday.

{mosads}Basim Muhammad Ahmad Sultan al-Bajari, the group’s minister of war, and military commander Hatim Talib al-Hamduni were killed in the strike, the announcement said.

“These deaths are the latest in coalition efforts to systemically eliminate ISIL’s cabinet wherever they hide, disrupting their ability to plot external terror attacks and hold onto the territory they use to claim legitimacy,” Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said in a statement. 

“The international coalition fighting ISIL, working with local, capable, and motivated forces on the ground in Iraq and Syria, continues to make sustained progress in our campaign to deal ISIL a lasting defeat.”

Cook noted that the strike came days after coalition forces captured Fallujah, which had been under ISIS control for two years.

Al-Bajari and al-Hamduni were both part of the ISIS leadership governing Mosul.