Ten ISIS leaders, some with links to Paris terror attacks, killed in US strikes

An Islamic State leader with direct links to the alleged Paris attacks mastermind has been killed in an air strike in Syria. Charaffe al Mouadan was hit in a strike on Christmas Eve as he was plotting additional terror attacks on the West, a US military spokesman has confirmed. Colonel Steve Warren said: “He was a Syrian-based ISIL member with a direct link to Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the Paris attacks cell leader." Mouadan was one of 10 ISIS leaders killed by the US-led coaltion in Syria in the past month in a number of air strikes.

Over the past month we’ve killed 10 ISIL leadership figures with targeted air strikes, including several external attack planners, some of whom are linked to the Paris attacks.

Col Steve Warren

Mouadan, 26, was the son of Moroccan-born parents who grew up in the suburbs of Paris. He was arrested in 2012 preparing to leave for Yemen or Afghanistan, a source close to the investigation told the news agency AFP. Another of those killed was Abdul Qader Hakim, aided IS’s external operations and had links to the Paris attack network. He was killed on 26 December. Another was said to be a Bangladeshi man who was educated in Britain and worked as a hacker for the terrorist organisation. Abaaoud was killed in the police raid on a Paris flat five days after the attacks in the capital which left 130 people dead.