The U.S. Just Took Out an ISIS Leader Linked to Paris Attacks

Another one bites the dust.

Airstrikes conducted by a U.S.-led military coalition killed an ISIS leader directly connected to the terror attacks that rocked Paris in November, a spokesman for the coalition told Reuters.

Charaffe al Mouadan, an ISIS leader with ties to suspected Paris terror ringleader Abdelhamid Abaaoud, was killed in a coalition airstrike on Christmas Eve, according to coalition spokesman U.S. Army Colonel Steve Warren. Warren added that Mouadan “was actively planning further attacks against the West,” according to Reuters.

Warren told reporters that the U.S.-led military force had eliminated 10 Islamic State leaders in the past month through a focused bombing campaign on militant strongholds in Iraq and Syria. Among those killed was Abdul Qader Hakim, an ISIS operative “who facilitated the militants’ external operations and had links to the Paris attack network,” Reuters reports.

“Over the past month, we’ve killed 10 leadership figures with targeted air strikes, including several external attack planners, some of whom are linked to the Paris attacks,” Warren said. “Others had designs on further attacking the West.”

The announcement by the U.S.-led coalition came one day after Iraqi forces seized the ISIS stronghold of Ramadi from the terror organization, a major victory since the Iraqi military collapsed under siege from the Islamic State last year.

Despite this good news, the fight against ISIS is far from over. “Part of those successes is attributable to the fact that the organization is losing its leadership,” Warren said, before warning: “It’s still got fangs.”