A U.S.-led coalition battling ISIS launched a series of airstrikes on a vehicle convoy in Iraq on Friday — an attack designed to take out the terror group’s leadership, a defense official told NBC News.
The airstrikes near Mosul destroyed 10 ISIS-armed trucks, the official said, and were launched after the coalition learned a gathering of the Islamist militant group’s leaders might be taking place nearby. The official could not say whether ISIS commander Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was among the leaders thought to have been at the meeting, or if any of the terror group’s leaders were killed.
"This strike demonstrates the pressure we continue to place on the ISIL terrorist network and the group's increasingly limited freedom to maneuver, communicate and command," the official said, referring to another name by which ISIS is known. The terror group has seized large parts of Syria and Iraq and has been targeted by an air campaign launched by the U.S., several Arab nations and other countries.
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