An operative of the Islamic State (ISIS) who coordinated the Istanbul nightclub attack was killed in a US military ground operation near Mayadin, Syria on April 6, the US Central Command announced on Friday.
Central Command’s spokesperson Col. John Thomas said Abdurakhmon Uzbeki facilitated the high-profile attack on Reina nightclub in Istanbul on New Year’s Eve.
“Uzbeki was a close associate of the so-called ‘Caliph’ of the Islamic State Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi,” Thomas said. “He facilitated the movement of ISIS foreign fighters and funds and he also played a key role in ISIS’s external terror attack plotting.”
US Department of Defense spokesperson Adrian Rankine-Galloway said in a statement that ISIS remains committed to plotting external terror attacks.
“ISIS remains committed to taking advantage of failed and weakened states and ungoverned spaces to plot and export brutal terror, aiming to kill in America, Europe and around the world,” he said.
A gunman, who was later identified as Abdulkadir Masharipov, killed at least 39 people and injured some 70 more when he attacked the Reina nightclub in Istanbul on New Year’s Eve.
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