Adnani, one of the Takfiri group’s founding members, was propaganda chief, top recruiter and the reported mastermind of a series of Daesh-claimed attacks in the West.
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It was Adnani who in a June 2014 audio recording declared IS’s establishment of a “caliphate” straddling Syria and Iraq and Baghdadi as “leader of Muslims everywhere”.
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 been widely tipped as a likely successor to the current head of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and the language used in the eulogies further indicated the esteem in which he was held.
“Adnani’s killing is a signal that IS can no longer protect its most senior leaders”, said Baghdad-based expert on militants Hisham al-Hashimi.
Accounts from arrested members of the Islamic State confirmed al-Adnani’s role as an operational leader as well.
“In isolation, Adnani’s death represents the demise of an important strategic and operational leader of the Islamic State – though only one person”, said Seth Jones, a terrorism specialist at the RAND Corp.
“On August 30, 2016, Russia’s Su-34 bomber destroyed by an airstrike in the area of Ma’arat Umm Hawsh a large group of IS militants comprising up to 40 people”.
A US defence official told Reuters the United States targeted Adnani on Tuesday in a strike on a vehicle travelling in the Syrian town of al-Bab.
In Washington, the spokesman for the Pentagon, Peter Cook, said it had no information to support Moscow’s claim that Russian Federation had also targeted Adnani with an airstrike. It didn’t provide details.
The United States said it launched an airstrike targeting al-Adnani in the Syrian city of al-Bab, which is northeast of Aleppo. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence information.
Abu Muhammad al-Adnani was on of the last living senior members of the terror groups and also the most visible member.
U.S. officials also say he was one of the first foreign fighters to oppose the presence of US-led forces in Iraq after the 2003 invasion.
Al-Adnani was the first to declare the Isis Caliphate even before Baghdadi did.
Meanwhile, Russia’s military yesterday said its air strikes had killed Adnani.
The officials added their attack was carried out in the area by a USA drone.
He is a Syrian who was born in the northern province of Idlib and is believed to be in his late 30s.
Hammered by two years of USA -led coalition air strikes and military losses on the ground, Adnani increasingly called in audio messages for attacks against the United States and Western countries.
Adnani, the ISIS propaganda chief and a key architect of attacks in the West, died in Aleppo province on Tuesday.
USA officials have often criticized Russia’s use of non-precision weapons in Syria that have resulted in civilian casualties. “Otherwise it would not have been possible to take out so many high-ranking figures”, he said.
The Russians who spoke with the U.S.at that time were not aware of the Syrians’ operations, a Pentagon spokesman says. He was with the group during the infamous era of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who founded Al-Qaeda in Iraq.
On May 6, another airstrike killed Abu Wahib, “military emir” of IS for the vast western Iraqi province of Anbar, near the town of Rutba.
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A powerful orator, he went on to become the voice of IS.
