IS propaganda team killed in Iraq air strike: Coalition

Washington: The US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group has said that it had killed a propaganda chief and associates in an air strike in the western Iraqi town of Al-Qaim.

Ibrahim Al-Ansari was an "important ISIS leader," Colonel Joseph Scrocca, a spokesman for the Baghdad-based coalition, said yesterday using an alternate acronym for Islamic State.

The propaganda official was a leader in propoganda efforts to recruit foreign fighters and encourage "terror attacks" in western countries, Scrocca told reporters.

The air strike took place on March 25, he said.

The bombardment, which also killed four other IS jihadists, destroyed a multimedia operation team, said another Defense Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Their propaganda efforts included "brainwashing of young children to perpetuate ISIS brutal methods," the source said.

The remote town of Al-Qaim is in the Euphrates Valley, at the border with Syria.

According to the Pentagon, the Euphrates Valley could become the last bastion of the Islamic State following the fall of their strongholds in Mosul, Iraq, and Raqa, Syria.