Moment ISIS second-in-command Ayad al-Jumaili is blasted and killed in air strike near Iraqi border with Syria
THIS is the moment an Iraqi airstrike wipes out Islamic State's second-highest ranking terror leader.
"War minister" Ayad al-Jumaili was a defector from the Iraqi army who headed the warped group's internal security.
His death in the region of al-Qaim near the Iraqi border with Syria was announced triumphantly on Iraqi state TV.
"The air force's planes executed with accuracy a strike on the headquarters of Daesh in al-Qaim resulting in the killing of Daesh's second-in-command...Ayad al-Jumaili, alias Abu Yahya", the report said.
Al-Jumaili was killed in the F-16 missile strike along with other Islamic State commanders at a hideout in the rural town, a military intelligence spokesman confirmed.
The influential deputy to depraved leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had been an intelligence officer under Saddam Hussein until the dictator's toppling 2003.
Iraqi forces, backed by a US-led coalition, have been battling since October to retake the city of Mosul.
It is Islamic State's last major stronghold in Iraq and the city where Baghdadi declared a caliphate nearly three years ago.
Nearly 290,000 people have fled the city to escape the fighting, according to the United Nations.
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