US confirms killing of top Islamic State group cleric

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The Associated Press

In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, Syrian citizens gather at the scene where two blasts exploded in the pro-government neighborhood of Zahraa, in Homs province, Syria, Sunday, Feb. 21, 2016. Two blasts in the central Syrian city of Homs killed more than a dozen people and injured many others in the latest wave of violence to hit the city in recent weeks, state TV said. (SANA via AP)

BEIRUT — The U.S. military has confirmed it killed a top Islamic State group cleric in an airstrike.

Central Command said Tuesday that Turki al-Binali was killed on May 31. Activists and ISIS supporters reported his death at the time, but the military is only confirming it now.

The Bahraini cleric wrote religious justifications for the enslavement of thousands of women from Iraq’s Yazidi minority and helped establish the ISIS branch in Libya. He rose to be one of the extremist group’s leading ideologues.

The military said Binali was killed in Mayadeen, an ISIS-held Syrian town near the Iraqi border.

Several senior Islamic State figures have been killed in recent years as the group has been driven from large parts of Syria and Iraq. U.S.-backed forces recently pushed into Raqqa, the northern Syrian city that served as the group’s de facto capital.

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The Associated Press