Takfiri ISIL group reported the death of its chief spokesman, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, on Tuesday, potentially signaling the loss of a senior militant who has steered the group’s campaign to bring violent operations to the West. “But if confirmed, the loss of Al-Adnani is further evidence that the military campaign against ISIS is making important progress”.
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“On Aug. 30, 2016, Russia’s Su-34 bomber destroyed by an airstrike in the area of Ma’arat Umm Hawsh a large group of ISIS militants comprising up to 40 people”.
Peter Cook, the Pentagon’s press secretary, confirmed that the senior Islamic State spokesman was targeted by the USA -led coalition in “a precision strike near Al Bab” in northern Syria’s Aleppo province, near the country’s border with Turkey.
“We are still assessing the results of the strike but Adnani’s removal from the battlefield would mark another significant blow to ISIL”, he said.
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.
Calling it a “joke”, USA defense officials today pushed back strongly against the Russian Defense Ministry’s claim that a Russian airstrike, not an American one, killed a top ISIS leader in Syria.
Washington has vowed to “systematically eliminate” senior IS leaders and has put a $10 million bounty on the group’s elusive leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
“It would be laughable but for the very real humanitarian suffering Russian Federation has inflicted”, the defense official said Wednesday.
“If you can kill a disbelieving American or European – especially the spiteful and filthy French – or an Australian, or a Canadian, or any other disbeliever from the disbelievers waging war, including the citizens of the countries that entered into a coalition against the Islamic State, then rely upon Allah, and kill him in any manner or way however it may be”, he said in a September 2014 speech.
Meanwhile, Russia’s military yesterday said its air strikes had killed Adnani.
The Islamic State group has suffered a string of defeats in recent weeks, including in Aleppo province, where Turkish troops and allied Syrian rebels drove IS out of the border town of Jarablus last week. “Al-Adnani has served as principal architect of ISIL’s external operations and as ISIL’s chief spokesman”.
“He has coordinated the movement of ISIL fighters, directly encouraged lone-wolf attacks on civilians and members of the military and actively recruited new ISIL members”, Mr Cook said. But Mr. Adnani’s unit has focused on attacks overseas.
“It has not devoted much, if any, effort that we’re aware of targeting ISIL’s leadership”.
The terrorist was considered the “main conduit for the dissemination of ISIL messages”, according to a 2014 report by the State Department.
Al-Adnani, whose real name was Taha Sobhi Falaha, was born in the northern Syrian province of Idlib. As one of the group’s founding members he was presented as their official spokesman and has issued a number of calls for individual attacks on the West.
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Some analysts believe Adnani was being prepared to be a potential successor to Baghdadi if the Islamic State leader were to be killed.
