Russia’s Defense Ministry said Wednesday that its air strike in northern Syria killed 40 Islamic State militants, including the militant group’s spokesman and chief strategist, who had laid out the blueprint for attacks against the West.
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ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE The White House does not have evidence suggesting Russian Federation was involved in an air strike that killed Islamic State leader Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, a spokesman said on Wednesday.
One of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria’s (ISIS) top leaders, Abu Mohamed al-Adnani, has been killed in Syria, the group has said.
The spokesman for ISIS Abu Mohammed Al-Adnani has reportedly been killed in Aleppo yesterday whilst “inspecting military operations”.
But a U.S. defence official dismissed the remarks.
A senior Syrian rebel official said Adnani was most probably killed in the ISIS-held city of al-Bab in an air strike. “We are still assessing the Resultsof that strike”, he said.
“We have no information to support Russia’s claim that they also carried out a strike against Adnani”, Pentagon Press Secretary Pete Cook said at a briefing today.
Adnani, a senior leader in the group, has been the voice of Islamic State over the past few years, and has released numerous, lengthy audio files online in which he delivered fiery sermons urging followers to carry out attacks.
“Al-Adnani’s removal from the battlefield would mark another significant blow to ISIL”, Cook said, using an alternate acronym ISIS.
The US said he had “co-ordinated the movement of Isil [IS] fighters, directly encouraged lone-wolf attacks on civilians and members of the military and actively recruited” new members.
Washington has vowed to “systematically eliminate” senior ISIL leaders and has put a US$10 million (Dh36.7m) bounty on the head of ISIL’s elusive leader, Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi.
Al-Adnani was killed as Turkish and Kurdish forces attacked ISIS-controlled areas of Aleppo, al-Masdar News reported. Russia, while claiming a similar strategy, is believed to have focused the majority of its strikes against rebel forces fighting to overthrow the government of Moscow ally Bashar Assad, at least for now. “The blood of the sheikhs will only make it more firm on the path of jihad and determination to take revenge and assault”, Amaq said, according to a statement from the SITE Intelligence Group.
Asked whether the MOU was used before the strike to alert Russian Federation to clear the airspace, Cook said that he did not know.
A Syrian national born Taha Sobhi Falaha, al-Adnani was a core member of ISIS, considered by some as second only to leader Abu Bakir al-Baghdadi.
Both Russian and USA aircraft operate in the skies over Syria, where they have opposing goals: Russia is backing the regime of embattled President Bashar Assad, while the U.S.is supporting Syrian rebels who want to oust Assad.
The US designated him a “global terrorist” this year and said he was one of the first foreign fighters to oppose US-led coalition forces in Iraq since 2003 before becoming spokesman of the militant group.
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He had been the chief propagandist for the ultra-hardline jihadist group since he declared in a June 2014 statement that it was establishing a modern-day caliphate spanning swaths of territory it had seized in Iraq and neighbouring Syria.
