IS propaganda team killed in Iraq airstrike

Coalition official says slain jihadists were part of efforts to recruit foreign fighters and encourage terror attacks in West

By AFP 31 March 2017, 4:05 am

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Islamic State terrorists in a propaganda video on November 16, 2015, promising attacks on countries involved in airstrikes across Syria. (screenshot: YouTube)

The US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group said Thursday that it had killed a propaganda chief and associates in an airstrike in the western Iraqi town of Al-Qaim.

Ibrahim Al-Ansari was an “important ISIS leader,” said Colonel Joseph Scrocca, a spokesman for the Baghdad-based coalition, using an alternate acronym for Islamic State.

The propaganda official was a leader in propaganda efforts to recruit foreign fighters and encourage “terror attacks” in Western countries, Scrocca told reporters.

The airstrike took place on March 25, he said.

The bombardment, which also killed four other IS jihadists, destroyed a multimedia operation team, said another Defense Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Their propaganda efforts included “brainwashing of young children to perpetuate ISIS brutal methods,” the source said.

The remote town of Al-Qaim is in the Euphrates Valley, at the border with Syria.

According to the Pentagon, the Euphrates Valley could become the last bastion of the Islamic State following the fall of their strongholds in Mosul, Iraq, and Raqqa, Syria.