IS news agency Amaq said Adnani “was martyred while surveying operations to repel the military campaigns against Aleppo” and pledged to avenge his death. ISIS has not revealed his cause of death.
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Despite a lengthy tribute, dated August 29, Amaq made no mention of who was responsible for killing al-Adnani, or whether he was killed from the air or from the ground.
A U.S. counter-terrorism official who monitors Islamic State said Adnani’s death would hurt the militants “in the area that increasingly concerns us as the group loses more and more of its caliphate and its financial base. and turns to mounting and inspiring more attacks in Europe, Southeast Asia and elsewhere”. Cook said the strike took place in the city of Al-Bab, in the same province.
“We are still assessing the results of the strike, but al-Adnani’s removal from the battlefield would mark another significant blow to ISIS”, Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said in a statement. He has co-ordinated the movement of ISIL fighters, directly encouraged lone-wolf attacks on civilians and members of the military and actively recruited new ISIL members. “To have that voice destroyed is a serious blow to the organization, probably the most significant kill that the enemies of the Islamic state have perpetrated since its declaration of the caliphate”.
“In the last several hours, we have received assurance that all parties involved are going to stop shooting at each other and focus on the ISIL threat”, US Central Command spokesman, Colonel John Thomas, said.
Adnani is a Syrian from Idlib, south-west of Aleppo, who pledged allegiance to ISIS’ predecessor Al-Qaeda more than a decade ago and was once imprisoned by United States forces in Iraq, according to the Brookings Institution.
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. As such, the external operations unit reported up to al-Adnani.
Analysts have described Adnani as a key figure in the jihadist group.
Hashimi said Adnani died from his wounds on Monday. Pentagon told Reuters that it had carried out an air strike against a “senior IS official” but did not confirm that it was behind al-Adnani’s death.
In September 2014, the U.S. government designated Adnani a “global terrorist” and the State Department has offered a $5 million reward for anyone who supplies information “that brings him to justice”.
The United States 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.
He was arrested in May 2005 in Al-Anbar province and is believed to have spent some time between 2005 and 2010 at the US detention facility, Camp Bucca.
This file image shows an image grab taken on October 2, 2013 from a video uploaded on YouTube on July 8, 2012, of the spokesman for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), Abu Mohammad al-Adnani al-Shami, speaking next to an Islamist flag at an uWASHINGTON, Aug 31 – Islamic State spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, who had a US$5 million (RM20 million) USA bounty on his head, was killed while surveying defenses near the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, the terrorist group’s Amaq News Agency reported.
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“He was the mouthpiece of ISIS”.
