BALADI NEWS
A high-ranking Islamic State leader who allegedly masterminded the extremist group's half-billion-dollar oil smuggling enterprise has been killed in a firefight, according to reports.
Thabit Sobhi Fahd Al-Ahmad, a self-styled minister of oil in the now dismantled so-called caliphate, was gunned down in his hideout by Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), according to a statement.
The SDF statement said the attack in Deir Ezzor province, east of Syria, was carried out in cooperation with the US-led Coalition forces.
Ahmad was considered to have a close relationship with the elusive leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who remains at large - despite several reports in the past claiming he had been killed.
The smuggling of black market oil had been a lucrative cornerstone of the ISIS economy, which helped the group take over vast swathes of Iraq and Syria.
At its height, ISIS was believed to be making $700 million a year through black market oil sales into Europe, much of it believed to have been trafficked across the borders of a compliant Turkey.
Michael S. Smith II, a US-based terrorism analyst and teaching fellow in Johns Hopkins University's Global Security Studies program, described Ahmad as a "high value target".
Source: 9News.