ISIS spokesman Mohammad al-Adnani has been killed, according to a statement from the terror group and its Amaq news agency.
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In Washington, a US defense official said in response to reports of al-Adnani’s death that a USA airstrike on Tuesday targeted “an ISIL senior leader” in the Syrian city of al-Bab, which is northeast of Aleppo.
It’s unclear if the spokesperson was killed near Aleppo city itself, or in the wider Aleppo Governorate, or whether he was killed by an airstrike or by ground forces.
A U.S. defense official said a short time later that coalition forces conducted an air strike Tuesday in Syria targeting a “senior leader” from the Islamic State group.
The extremist group has suffered a string of defeats in recent weeks, including in Syria’s northern Aleppo province, where Turkish troops and allied Syrian rebels drove IS out of the border town of Jarablus last week. “Islamic State’s leadership prides itself on its organizational opacity, so it is crucial that we don’t overstate the immediate tactical consequences of his death”. It did not say exactly when, where or how Adnani died.
A USA official said that coalition aircraft had conducted an airstrike targeting a senior ISIS leader in al Bab, a city in Aleppo Province halfway between Aleppo and Manbij.
“We are still assessing the results of the strike, but al-Adnani’s removal from the battlefield would mark another significant blow to ISIS”. The Barack Obama government designated Adnani a “global terrorist” this year, and put a reward of $5 million on his head (approximately Rs 33 crore).
Amaq vowed revenge against the “filthy cowards in the sect of disbelief”.
With all that influence, Adnani attracted much attention from the United States and its intelligence services. He was one of the first foreign fighters to oppose the USA -led coalition in Iraq and is responsible for publicizing – and voicing – the Islamic State’s claim to forming a so-called Islamic Caliphate.
Born in 1977, al-Adnani made a point of encouraging supporters to kill Western non-believers wherever they could. In January, al-Adnani was reported injured in a coalition airstrike.
Adnani had often been the face of the Sunni militant group, such as when he issued a message in May urging attacks on the United States and Europe during the holy month of Ramadan, and as in September 2014 when he called on supporters to kill Westerners throughout the world.
If confirmed, Adnani’s death would damage the Islamic State in two areas that have made the terror organization particularly risky: its sophisticated use of social media to reach a global audience, and its willingness to employ the crudest forms of violence in scattered plots outside Iraq and Syria.
Iraqi army advances against the jihadist group mean that Baghdad is on track to retake Mosul from it by the end of this year, the head of the USA military’s Central Command General Joseph Votel said earlier on Tuesday.
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Adnani was the voice behind the Islamic State statement considered to be an inspiration to a litany of terror attacks around the world.
