US-led coalition chalks up more victories against IS

It may not seem to be the case, given the almost daily headlines about the inroads being made by the Islamic State group, but the United States and its allies in the war against global terrorism are hitting back with great effectiveness.

Indeed, the surgical airstrikes are aimed at decimating the leadership of the brutal terror organization.

Last month, we noted that the number of terrorist leaders killed under President Barack Obama’s watch gives lie to the claims of his critics that the administration is conceding the Middle East to Islamic extremists.

And if there’s any doubt about the effectiveness of the airstrikes, consider this report last week from Agence France-Presse:

“In one of the biggest assaults on the Islamic State, US-led coalition forces said they carried out a series of 16 airstrikes in its Syrian stronghold of Raqa on Saturday.”

The news service quoted Lt. Col. Thomas Gilleran as saying in a statement from the coalition that the airstrikes were “executed to deny Daesh [IS] the ability to move military capabilities throughout Syria and into Iraq.”

“This was one of the largest deliberate engagements we have conducted to date in Syria, and it will have debilitating effects on Daesh’s ability to move from Raqa.”

IS REIGN OF TERROR CONTINUES

But while there have been successes, Islamic militants continue their campaign of death and destruction in the Middle East.

A video released recently by IS shows teenage members of the group executing 25 Syrian soldiers in an amphitheater in the ancient ruins of Palmyra. Teenagers as executioners have become the calling card for Islamic State. The masterminds of the extremist group have come up with a winning formula for building an army of terrorists: Teach a child to kill a human being and he — or she — will spend a lifetime of murder.

The teenagers featured on the video were recruited by IS, and there’s one individual who is credited with developing a worldwide recruiting campaign: Tahar al-‘Awni al-Harzi, a senior leader.

Al-Harzi, a Tunisian, was responsible for luring foreign fighters, securing arms and raising funds for the militant group.

We say “was” because he’s dead. That’s the headline.

Al-Harzi was killed by a U.S. drone strike in Syria on June 16, a day after his younger brother Ali Awni al-Harzi died in a U.S. airstrike in Mosul, Iraq.

“His death will impact ISIL’s ability to integrate foreign terrorist fighters into the Syrian and Iraqi fight as well as to move people and equipment across the border between Syria and Iraq,” said Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, using an acronym for the Islamic State group, according to the Wall State Journal.

The newspaper called al-Harzi, the older brother, the “emir (leader) of suicide bombers.” He oversaw the group’s operations beyond Iraq and Syria and also arranged suicide bombing attacks in Iraq.

He is said to have facilitated the movement of foreign fighters from Europe to Turkey and eventually to Syria and also arranged suicide bombing attacks in Iraq.

In July 2013, al-Harzi was freed from Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, Iraq, during a raid by Islamic State group fighters, CNN reported. He was reportedly added to the U.S. Designated Terrorist List in 2014.

In May, the State Department’s Rewards for Justice program offered a $3 million reward for information on al-Harzi. According to his profile on the Rewards for Justice website, he arranged for a $2 million deal with a Qatar-based Islamic State group financial facilitator, and helped with fundraising in Qatar.

VICTORY FOR OBAMA

By any measure, his death is a major victory for the Obama administration. Apart from the fact that al-Harzi was one of the key players in IS, his death coincided with the killing of Naser Abdel-Karim Wahishi, leader of al- Qaida’s feared affiliate in Yemen.

Wahishi, who had been in the cross-hairs of the U.S. for years but had eluded capture or death, orchestrated deadly attacks on the military and civilian population in Yemen.

He was killed in a U.S. drone strike last month in the southern port city of Mukalla, and while his demise didn’t grab headlines the way Osama bin Laden’s killing by Navy SEALS did, it is still significant.

Likewise, the death of Tariq bin Tahar al-‘Awni al-Harzi shows that the strategy being pursued by the United States and its allies is working.