WASHINGTON, Dec 10 (Reuters) - The U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria has killed the group's finance minister and two other senior leaders in air strikes in recent weeks, a U.S. military spokesman said on Thursday.
Army Colonel Steve Warren told a Pentagon briefing coalition strikes had killed Abu Salah, Islamic State's financial minister, in late November.
"He was one of the most senior and experienced members of ISIL's financial network and he was a legacy Al Qaeda member," Warren said.
Warren said Salah was the third member of the finance network who had been killed in as many months.
"Killing him and his predecessors exhausts the knowledge and talent needed to coordinate funding within the organization," Warren added.
According to a Brooking Institute report, Abu Salah's real name is Muafaq Mustafa Mohammed al- Karmoush.
Warren said a senior leader responsible for coordinating the group's extortion activities and another leader who acted as an executive officer had also been killed.
you take one out, another sprouts in its place - with even more venom against the united states. not saying we shouldn't be taking out their leadership but not too much to rejoice over yet.
