Isis: Two Daesh leaders behind Paris attacks killed in air strikes

Two Islamic State (Isis) leaders with alleged links to the Paris terror attacks on 13 November have been killed in air strikes in Syria and Iraq, according to a Pentagon official.

Col Steven Warren, spokesman for the Pentagon's Combined Joint Task Force, said Charaffe al Mouadan was killed on 24 December, AFP reported. Mouadan had a "direct link" to Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the alleged planner of the Paris attacks in which 130 people were killed, said Warren. Belgian Abaaoud was killed in a shootout with police days after the Paris attacks.

Abdul Qader Hakim, who facilitated IS's (Daesh) external operations and had links to the network who instigated and carried out the Paris attacks was also killed, Reuters reported. Hakim was killed on 26 December in Mosul, said Warren.

They were among 10 IS leaders killed in the past month in targeted air strikes; some of whom were associated with the Paris attacks, while "others had designs on further attacking the West".

The US-led coalition has stepped up air strikes against IS targets in its self-styled caliphate in Syria and Iraq in the wake of the Paris attacks, and an attack inspired by the terrorist group carried out by a couple in San Bernardino, California, in which 14 people were killed.