Second-in-command of Daesh (ISIS), Abu Alaa al-Afri, was killed in an airstrike by the US-led coalition, the Iraq Ministry of Defense said Wednesday.
Afri, a former physics teacher in Iraq, was in charge of the extremist group after leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was allegedly seriously injured in March, leaving in question the state of Daesh's senior leadership.
A video posted on the defense ministry's website showed a US-led coalition airstrike that pounded the compound of where Afri was allegedly meeting other Daesh leaders, including the supreme judge, International Business Times reported.
Afri was based in the city of Mosul who had "begun to head up Daesh with the help of officials responsible for other portfolios," Iraqi government adviser Hisham al-Hashimi told Newsweek.
Before joining Daesh he was a physics teacher in the northwestern province of Nineveh and had published several articles on religion, IBT reported.
The Guardian said in May that Baghdadi would never be able to lead the group again after he had sustained a spinal injury and seen doctors that traveled to his hideout in Mosul.
Watch the video Iraq posted here:
