The Pentagon said Thursday that two senior Islamic State leaders were killed in a U.S. airstrike in the Iraqi city of Mosul on June 25.
(FOX)- The Pentagon said the airstrike killed deputy war minister Basim Muhammad Ahmad Sultan al-Bajari and a military commander identified as Hatim Talib al-Hamduni.
The announcement comes after a U.S. official said earlier this week that at least 250 ISIS militants were killed in U.S.-led coalition airstrikes targeting Islamic State convoys.
Col. Christopher Garver said the first convoy was spotted southwest of Fallujah in an area with known ISIS influence. Iraqi Security Forces fought the militants on the ground, he said, before coalition strikes destroyed some 55 vehicles.
The official said a second convoy formed east of Ramadi later Wednesday before coalition and Iraqi jets launched more strikes. He said that air assault destroyed nearly 120 ISIS vehicles, but in both attacks, Iraqi Security Forces destroyed more.
The fall of Fallujah means that Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, is the terror group’s only remaining urban stronghold in Iraq after Iraqi forces recaptured Fallujah.
Islamic State has suffered a string of territorial losses in Iraq but the group continues to carry out large-scale militant attacks in the capital, Baghdad, and other territory far from the front-lines.