WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The US-led anti-Daesh coalition has killed more than twenty Islamic State (ISIL or Daesh) operatives who were actively developing plans to launch terrorist attacks abroad, US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter said on Wednesday.
"We’ve killed over 20 of ISIL’s [Islamic State] external operators who were actively plotting to attack our homelands and personnel,” Carter stated, according to his prepared remarks at a joint ministerial meeting distributed by the Pentagon.
Carter also noted that the anti-Daesh coalition has also killed key Daesh ministers and captured one of the principals of the terrorist group’s chemical weapons program.
Wherever local forces have moved in Iraq and Syria, Carter added, the coalition has taken out Daesh field commanders and is continuing to attack its oil infrastructure.
The Islamic State, also known as Daesh in Arabic, is a terrorist group that controls territory in Iraq and Syria and it outlawed in the United States, Russia and a plethora of other nations.