Iraqi state-run TV says IS second-in-command killed in airstrike

Ayad Al Jumaili, the man believed to be the deputy of IS leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, has been killed in an air strike, Iraqi State TV said on Saturday, citing Iraqi military intelligence.

Jumaili was killed with other IS commanders in a strike carried out by the Iraqi air force in the region of Al Qaim, near the border with Syria, the channel said, without giving the date of the raid. The TV described Jumaili as IS's "second-in-command" and "war minister". 

The spokesman of the U.S.-led coalition could not immediately be reached for comment. Iraqi forces, backed by a U.S.-led coalition, have been battling to retake the city of Mosul, IS's stronghold in Iraq and the city where Baghdadi declared a caliphate nearly three years ago.

Tense of thousands of refugees have been fleeing the city to escape the fighting. It is unclear whether Baghdadi is still there. But U.S. and Iraqi officials believe he has left operational commanders behind with diehard followers to fight the battle of Mosul, and is now hiding out in the desert.

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Friday called on world powers to increase aid to help people fleeing the Iraqi city of Mosul which government forces have been battling to retake from IS. Iraqi forces have seized back most of the country's second-largest city from the militant group in a massive six-month campaign. But at least 355,000 residents have fled fighting, according to the government, and some 400,000 civilians remain trapped inside the densely-populated Old City where street battles have raged for weeks.

"We don't have the resources necessary to support these people," Guterres told reporters during a visit to the Hassan Sham Camp, one of several centres outside Mosul packed with civilians escaping the fighting.

The U.N. and Iraqi authorities have been building more camps but struggle to accommodate new arrivals with two families sometimes having to share one tent.

"Unfortunately our programme is only 8 per cent funded," he said, referring to a 2017 U.N. humanitarian response programme without giving additional details.

During his visit, which lasted about half an hour, residents complained to Guterres about the quality of drinking water and poor living conditions in tents frequented by mice and insects. "We want to go back to our villages. We are fed up," said Saqr Younis, who fled to Mosul when IS arrived in his village in 2014. "If we had died by bombardment it would have been more merciful," said Saqr who has been in the camp for four months.

Many of the displaced have returned to their homes in areas retaken from IS but some, like Saqr, have not yet been allowed to return by the authorities.

On Friday, IS fired at least 18 rockets from western Mosul into the eastern part which Iraqi force have retaken, the city's police chief Brigadier General Wathiq Al Hamdani told Reuters. Machine gunfire and mortars could be heard in the area of the old city but like in previous days there was no new push by government forces. State television said the air force bombed an IS position in Baaj, some 130 km west of Mosul near the Syrian border.

Source: Timesofoman