Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani announced that a senior Islamic State leader had been killed in western Iraq during a joint operation involving Iraq’s national intelligence service and forces from the US-led coalition. The man was identified as Abdallah Maki Mosleh al-Rifai, also known as Abu Khadija.
Al-Sudani described al-Rifai as the militant group’s “deputy caliph” and one of its most dangerous figures. Iraqi security officials said the operation took the form of an airstrike in Anbar province on Thursday night, with his death confirmed on Friday. The officials spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to discuss the mission publicly.
US President Donald Trump also announced the death, saying American forces had pursued the Islamic State figure in coordination with Iraq’s government and the Kurdish regional authorities. Neither government’s statement, as presented in the supplied evidence, disclosed detailed intelligence behind the identification or the operational sequence leading to the strike.
The announcement coincided with the first visit to Iraq by Syria’s top diplomat since the fall of President Bashar Assad. Iraqi Foreign Minister Fouad Hussein and Syrian interim Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan al-Shibani used the meeting to emphasize cooperation against Islamic State cells operating on both sides of their border.
Hussein said the delegations discussed the group’s movements inside Iraq and Syria as well as along the frontier. He also pointed to a planned regional operations room bringing together Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon, an arrangement formed at a meeting in Amman and expected to begin work soon.
The diplomatic setting reflected renewed concern in Baghdad over the possibility of an Islamic State resurgence after Syria’s abrupt political transition. Syria’s new authorities, led by the former insurgent organization Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, had pursued Islamic State cells after taking control. Iraqi officials nevertheless worried that broader instability could create openings for militants to reorganize.
Those concerns also intersected with plans to wind down the American-led coalition’s military mission in Iraq. Washington and Baghdad had agreed that the mission would end by September 2025, with US forces leaving some bases. Iraqi political leaders initially argued that the Islamic State threat was contained and no longer required the same level of foreign military support. Assad’s fall prompted some members of Iraq’s governing coalition to reconsider that assessment.
Al-Rifai’s reported death represented a prominent counterterrorism success for Iraqi and coalition forces, but the regional coordination discussed in Baghdad signaled that governments did not view the wider threat as eliminated. The operation and the talks both highlighted the continued cross-border nature of the security challenge.
