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'Daesh leader linked to Paris attacks killed in US airstrike'

Soldiers walk in front of an ambulance as rescue workers evacuate victims at the site of an attack on Paris on November 14, 2015. (AFP photo)

The US Defense Department says a Daesh (ISIL) terrorist with “direct” ties to the alleged mastermind of the Paris attacks was among 10 terrorists killed in Syria.

French national Sharaf al-Mouadan was killed in a US-led coalition airstrike on December 24th, Baghdad-based US military spokesman Colonel Steve Warren told reporters Tuesday.

“He was a Syrian-based ISIL member with a direct link to Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the Paris attacks cell leader," Warren said in a video call.

“We will continue to hunt ISIL leaders who are working to recruit, plan and inspire attacks against the United States of America and our allies,” he added.

Mouadan had been actively plotting further terrorist attacks against the West, Warren said, without giving additional details.

All 10 of the Daesh leaders killed and named on Tuesday were targeted with airstrikes, mostly using unmanned drones, Warren said.

Mouadan, 26, was the son of Morocco-born parents and the last of eight children. He was born in Belgium but was raised in the suburbs of Paris.

US-led airstrikes have been hitting purported ISIL positions in Iraq and Syria for more than a year. The offensive, however, has failed to stop the advances of the extremist militants.

According to Amnesty International, the terror organization is in possession of a substantial arsenal of US-made weapons and equipment they have captured from the Iraqi military.

This comes in the wake of the November 13 Paris attacks that reportedly killed at least 130 people and injured hundreds more.

Daesh terrorists, who were initially trained by the CIA in Jordan in 2012 to destabilize the Syrian government, have claimed responsibility for the deadly attacks in France.

However, some independent American analysts, like former US Treasury official Paul Craig Roberts, say the United States and NATO actually orchestrated the Paris attacks as a “false flag” to enter the Syrian war in order to counter Russia, which has been conducting air strikes in Syria against ISIL terrorists since September 30.


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