Top IS commander killed in Iraq

Mosul, April 23 (IANS/AKI) A top military aide to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has been killed in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, the al-Hadath TV channel reported on Thursday.

A crack team of former Baathist soldiers shot dead Wisan Kanan, one of the militant group's top commanders in Mosul, the channel said.

"A special force of the Free Officers Movement gunned down Wisan Kanan," Mohammad Bahaj, a member of the Free Officers Movement, told al-Hadath.

The Free Officers Movement has claimed the killing of several IS leaders in recent months, including Abu Shahab al Suri, the group's commander in the western area of Mosul.

It was established in June last year by 490 former officers from the Baathist regime of late Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

Kanan, a former Al Qaeda leader, was one of the most prominent IS commanders in extremist-held Mosul, Bahaj was quoted as saying.

He had joined hardline rebel group al-Nusra Front in Syria and was earlier arrested by the US forces in Iraq in 2010, according to Bahaj.

--IANS/AKI

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