Midday Roundup: U.S. announces take down of senior ISIS leader

Target acquired. A U.S. special operations team conducting a pre-dawn raid in Syria on Friday killed senior Islamic State (ISIS) leader Abd al-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli. The terrorist, also known as Abu Ala al-Afri, was considered the group’s second-in-command. U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter confirmed the raid during a news conference this morning, but declined to give details. He said the operation was part of ongoing efforts to cut down the terror group’s leadership team. Another U.S. official said the raid was prompted by the ISIS attack in Belgium on Tuesday. Carter described Al-Afri as the ISIS finance minister, but he also had a hand in external affairs and plots. Before joining al-Qaeda in 2004, al-Afri was a physics professor. He spent time in an Iraqi jail and joined ISIS after his release in 2012.

Marching on Mosul. Iraqi armed forces liberated several villages surrounding Mosul from ISIS control Thursday. U.S. airstrikes are backing the campaign, but Col. Steve Warren said the Iraqi military still needs to drum up more forces if it hopes to retake the city. Training and equipping them for battle could take quite some time, Warren predicted. Meanwhile, in Syria, government forces backed by Russian airstrikes are fighting to reclaim the famed town of Palmyra. ISIS captured the ancient city in 2014 and destroyed famous Roman ruins by strapping prisoners to ancient columns and blowing them up. Syrian troops stormed the edges of Palmyra yesterday after weeks spent capturing several hills surrounding the town.

Forced confession. North Korea has a new U.S. prisoner, and the totalitarian regime in Pyongyang is parading him before television cameras to demonstrate the West’s so-called corruption. Kim Dong Chul is a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Seoul in 1953. He was in the North on business, heading a company in the Rason special economic zone. But he’s also a Christian pastor who has ministered in both the U.S. and China, according to a North Korean defector who knew him. North Korean officials arrested Kim in October. During his televised confession, Kim admitted to committing “unpardonable espionage” and apologized to the North Korean government. He said he attempted to steal state secrets for the South Koreans, who were paying him. The goal was to overthrow the North Korean government, he said. North Korea commonly exacts false public confessions from its political prisoners as part of its constant propaganda campaign. U.S. officials said they were aware of Kim’s case but declined to comment on specifics.

Gaining ground. A new Fox News poll shows Donald Trump’s lead over Republican rival Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas closing to just 3 points nationally—41 to 38 percent. And a new poll of registered voters in Pennsylvania, who will vote next month, also shows Trump up by just three points. His closest challenger there is not Cruz but Ohio Gov. John Kasich. Trump leads Kasich in Pennsylvania 33 to 30 percent with Cruz at 20 percent. That could help explain why Kasich is staying in the race. Perhaps of greater concern to Trump, polls continue to show Hillary Clinton beating him soundly in a hypothetical general-election matchup. Four new polls all have Trump losing to Clinton by an average margin of 11 points. Three of the four polls show Cruz trailing Clinton by an average of 3 points. But Kasich leads Clinton in all four polls by an average of 7 points.

Legacy of laughs. Comedian Gary Shandling died Thursday in Los Angeles of an apparent heart attack. He was 66. Shandling was best known for The Larry Sanders Show, a spoof on late-night talk shows that ran on HBO between 1992 and 1998. He also frequently sat in for Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show. But Shandling got a slow start in show business, first studying electrical engineering at the University of Arizona. In 1973, he moved to Los Angeles, where he worked at an advertising agency and tried to sell scripts for sitcoms. He wrote a few for Sanford and Son and Welcome Back, Kotter before starting to get gigs as a stand-up comic. More recently, he appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and Craig Ferguson’s The Late Late Show. He also had a recurring role in Iron Man 2 and Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

WORLD Radio’s Mary Reichard and Kent Covington contributed to this report.