A
senior Islamic State leader who coordinated suicide bombings and
recruited funds and fighters for the jihadists has been killed in a
coalition air strike in Syria, the Pentagon said Thursday.
Tariq
bin Tahar al-Awni al-Harzi was killed in the northern city of Shaddadi
on June 16, Pentagon spokesman Navy Captain Jeff Davis said in a
statement.
His
brother Ali, an IS recruiter and person of interest in the 2012
Benghazi attack, was killed by an air strike in Iraq a day earlier.
Washington
had put a $3-million bounty on the head of Harzi, a 33-year-old
Tunisian, and described him in the past as the IS group’s “emir of
suicide bombers.”
As of late 2013, Harzi was a key figure in suicide and car bombings in Iraq, the US says.
The Pentagon said his killing was a significant blow to the Islamic State group.
“His
death will impact ISIL’s ability to integrate foreign terrorist
fighters into the Syrian and Iraqi fight as well as to move people and
equipment across the border between Syria and Iraq,” Davis said, using
an alternative acronym for the group.
The
Pentagon said Harzi was also “responsible for moving people and
material into Syria and Iraq” and also raised funds to recruit fighters
and facilitate travel.
In
addition, he supported the Islamic State group by procuring and
shipping weapons from Libya to Syria, where the militants have taken
large swathes of territory.
He
also worked to help raise funds from Gulf-based donors for the Islamic
State group, the United States says, including about $2 million from a
Qatar-based facilitator
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