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Mon. 9:23 a.m.: Syrian Kurdish forces say they killed close al-Baghdadi aide

People look at a destroyed houses near the village of Barisha, in Idlib province, Syria, Sunday after an operation by the U.S. military which targeted Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the shadowy leader of the Islamic State group. President Donald Trump says Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is dead, and Syrian Kurdish forces said today they've taken out a top aide as well. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)

BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian Kurdish forces killed the right-hand man and spokesman for the Islamic State group in a joint operation with U.S. troops in northern Syria, just hours after U.S. special forces killed the extremist group’s leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, a Kurdish commander said today.

The comments came a day after President Donald Trump announced the killing of al-Baghdadi, a development that left IS without an obvious leader — a major setback for a terror organization that in March was forced by American troops and Kurdish forces out of the last portion of its self-declared “caliphate,” which once spanned a swath of Iraq and Syria.

Mazloum Abdi, the commander of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, said his group’s intelligence cooperated with the U.S. military to target on Sunday al-Baghdadi’s aide, Abu Hassan al-Muhajir, in a village near Jarablus, a town in northwestern Syria. It was part of ongoing operations to hunt down IS leaders, Abdi said.

If confirmed, the death of the would be another blow to IS. U.S. officials had no immediate comment on the Syrian Kurdish claim or on the fate of al-Muhajir.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported al-Muhajir’s death, saying he was travelling in a convoy made up of an oil tanker and a sedan. The bodies of those killed in the attack were charred and it wasn’t immediately clear how the al-Muhajir’s identity could have been confirmed.

The U.S. raid that killed al-Baghdadi, the shadowy leader of IS who presided over its global jihad and became arguably the world’s most wanted terrorist, took place just before midnight on Saturday in Syria’s Idlib province.

It was a milestone in the fight against IS, which brutalized much of Syria and Iraq and sought to direct a global campaign from a self-declared “caliphate.” A yearslong campaign by American and allied forces led to the recapture of the group’s territorial holdings, but its violent ideology has continued to inspire attacks.

The prime minister of Sri Lanka, where 269 people were killed last April in suicide attacks claimed by the Islamic State group, today commended President Donald Trump for the successful operation.

Ranil Wickremesinghe said on Twitter that IS “has been creating fear and terror around the world. This successful operation makes the world a safe place”

Suicide bombers struck in three churches and three tourist hotels in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday, killing 269 people and wounding some 500. Investigators found two local Muslim groups were responsible for the attacks.

A video released afterward showed ringleader Mohamed Zahran, who was among the suicide bombers, and others whose faces were covered pledging allegiance to al-Baghdadi.

A separate video showed al-Baghdadi appearing in a video praising the attacks in Sri Lanka.

The German government says its thoughts are with the many victims of Islamic State atrocities.

Government spokesman Steffen Seibert cited the “murdered and enslaved Yazidis,” local people in areas where IS had taken control as well as foreign hostages, and those who were killed in IS attacks in Europe and elsewhere.

He told reporters today that al-Baghdadi “can’t issue such murderous orders anymore now,” but added that “this doesn’t mean that the fight against IS is over.”

Seibert says he had no information on whether Germany was involved in the U.S.-led operation, and declined to comment on Trump’s claim that Germany and other European countries have been unwilling to take back their nationals who joined IS.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman says Kremlin will regard the death of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as a welcome development if it is confirmed that he was killed in a U.S. special operation in Syria.

Dmitry Peskov’s comments today echoed a Defense Ministry statement a day earlier that expressed doubts about the veracity of President Donald Trump’s claim.

Peskov says that iIf the reality of this information about the liquidation of al-Baghdadi is confirmed, then in general we talk about a serious contribution by the president of the United States in the fight against international terrorism.”

Peskov declined to say whether Russia had been informed of the raid ahead of time.

French former President Francois Hollande has praised the death of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as “a page that is being turned.”

Hollande, who was in office when the deadly Nov. 13, 2015, attacks in and around Paris occurred, said he has thoughts for “the families of the victims … because these families now know that the chief of the Islamist terrorism organization who had planned, organized, prepared these attacks is dead today.”

The IS group claimed responsibility for the Paris attacks.

Al-Baghdadi was responsible for directing and inspiring terror attacks across continents and in the heart of Europe.

Hollande warned that “it is not a fatal blow” against the IS group because it “still has fighters.”

The Nov. 13, 2015, attacks on Paris cafes, the national stadium and the Bataclan concert hall left 130 people dead.

China is Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang today told reporters that as a “victim of terrorism,” China “actively participated in the international anti-terrorism campaign.”

Geng urged the international community to “further strengthen cooperation to jointly fight terrorism” and added that China believes “we should address both the manifestation and the root cause when fighting terrorism and strive to eliminate the breeding ground of terrorism.”

China has clamped down hard on Uighurs and other minority Muslim groups in its northwest following a series of attacks blamed on terrorists that killed hundreds earlier in the decade.

An unknown number of Chinese Muslims are believed to have smuggled themselves to Syria and Iraq to fight alongside the so-called Islamic State.

Japan’s top government spokesman called it an important first step toward restoring peace and stability in the Middle East.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga today also praised the result “as part of international measures against extremism.”

Al-Baghdadi’s identity was confirmed by a DNA test conducted onsite, Trump had said. The operation coincided with a low point in Trump’s presidency as he is mired in impeachment proceedings and facing widespread Republican condemnation for his Syria policy.

Trump’s decision to pull back U.S. troops from northeastern Syria raised a storm of bipartisan criticism in Washington, including statements that the American pullout could help IS regain strength after losing all the territory it once controlled. The pullback also was viewed as an abandonment of the U.S.’s only ally in Syria, the Kurdish-led forces, who fought IS for years with the U.S-led coalition.

Trump said the troop pullout “had nothing to do with this,” and said Kurdish forces were among the many cooperating to execute the operation to kill al-Baghdadi.

Both Iraqi and Kurdish officials claimed a role. The Turkish military also tweeted that prior to the operation in Idlib, it exchanged “information” and coordinated with U.S. military.

Syrian Kurdish forces appeared ready to portray al-Baghdadi’s death as a joint victory for their faltering alliance with the U.S., weeks after Trump ordered American forces to withdraw from northeastern Syria, all but abandoning Washington’s allies to a wide-ranging Turkish assault.

Syrian Kurdish forces spokesman Mustafa Bali said his fighters believe al-Muhajir was in Jarablus to facilitate al-Baghdadi’s travels to the area, which is administered by Turkey-backed fighters.

“More (IS figures) remain hiding in the area,” Bali said late on Sunday.

Little is known about al-Muhajir, who assumed the role of a spokesman after his predecessor was killed in an airstrike in 2016. The name, a nom-de-guerre, indicates that he is a foreigner, and he was also believed to be a possible successor to al-Baghdadi.

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