On Tuesday, the Pentagon said USA warplanes had attacked Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, the top Islamic State spokesman and strategist, in a strike in northern Syria. A Russian Su-34 bomber reportedly carried out a strike in the area of Ma’arat Umm Hawsh, which is also north of Aleppo but more than 20 miles west of al-Bab, killing al-Adnani and around 40 other people.
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The U.S. and Russian Federation have a memorandum or understanding (MOU) in place to deconflict airspace over Syria, where they have both been operating independently of one another since September 2015, when Russian Federation entered the air campaign – divided over the future of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
“Among those terrorists, according to the information confirmed through several intelligence channels, there was the military leader Abu Mohammad al-Adnani known as the Spokesperson of the worldwide terrorist organization the ‘Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, ‘” the statement continued.
The terrorist’s demise also would constitute “a significant step in reducing ISIL’s ability to conduct external attacks outside of Iraq and Syria”, the spokesman added.
Adnani had served as principal architect of the terror group’s external operations and as its chief spokesman.
BEIRUT (AP) The Islamic State group’s spokesman and chief strategist, who laid out the blueprint for the extremist group’s attacks against the West, has been killed while overseeing operations in northern Syria, the group announced Tuesday. “And we are still assessing the results of that strike”, Cook said.
It was the first time Moscow claimed to have killed a top-ranking IS leader.
“Adnani’s killing is a signal that ISIS can no longer protect its most senior leaders”, said a Baghdad-based expert on militant groups, Mr Hisham al-Hashimi.
He is believed to have carried out those orders as one of the ISIS leaders overseeing its security service, known as Amniyat, which includes the external operations unit tasked with worldwide attacks on the West.
In his post as a mouthpiece of the terrorist organization, al-Adnani was viewed as the face of the group’s efforts to recruit new members and inspire “lone wolf” attacks in the Western world.
Al Adnani, a Syrian born in 1977, was one of ISIL’s most recognised leaders.
The United States is in doubt whether Russian Federation killed ISIS spokesman Mohammad al-Adnani in one of its airstrikes in Syria.
“It would be amusing if not for the character of the campaign the Russians have undertaken in Syria”.
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Pentagon said that the United States had been actively been looking for Islamic State leader al-Adnani for some time, given his prominent role within the organisation.
