A government official in Washington told VOA that the US been tracking several “high value” IS members in Aleppo province.
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“It would be laughable but for the real humanitarian suffering Russian Federation has inflicted”, the official said.
A US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces – a mix of Kurdish and Arab militias – has also made inroads into IS strongholds the province, cutting them off from the Turkish border and supply lines along it.
But members of the rival terrorist group al-Qeada were also celebrating the death of Al-Adnani, who was once a member himself. Cook said Wednesday that the United States is “still assessing the results of the strike”.
Washington said Tuesday the two sides – both USA allies – had agreed to a cessation of hostilities between their forces in Syria after deadly clashes at the weekend.
Meanwhile, ISIS announced Tuesday their leader Adnani has been killed and it was highest-profile killing until now of their member.
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 Islamic State confirmed the death of their spokesman and chief inciter of violence against the West on Tuesday.
“We have actively been looking for Adnani for some time given his prominent role within the organization, and I’m not going to get into intelligence or operational matters, but we have already confirmed for you all that we conducted a precision strike yesterday targeting Adnani near Al Bab, Syria”.
“When calling for lone wolf attacks in [the] West, ISIS fighters/supporters quote Adnani more than any other individual”, wrote Rita Katz, a terrorism analyst and the director of the SITE Intelligence Group, on Twitter. He released numerous audio files online in which he delivered fiery sermons urging followers to kill civilians in nations that supported the USA -led coalition against the group.
“It’s hard to imagine that Adnani’s successor will be more radical than Adnani”, he said.
Adnani was well-known for ordering operatives to attack countries participating in the coalition against ISIS. He oversaw the group’s external operations division, responsible for recruiting operatives around the world and instigating or organizing them to carry out attacks that have included Paris, Brussels and Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Gulmorod Khalimov, 41, is a former colonel in Tajikistan’s interior ministry police special operations unit and a trained sniper.
A number of ISIS followers and members captured and questioned in the last two years, including French jihadists Faiz Bouchrane and Reda Hame, have attested to Adnani as head of the Amniyat.
A U.S. defence official said the US-led coalition forces battling ISIL had conducted an air strike Tuesday targeting a “senior leader” of the group, without specifying who the leader was.
Ad-nani has been with ISIS since its beginnings and was close to Baghdadi.
“Most notably, he served as ISIL’s chief of external operations, directing and inspiring major terrorist attacks outside of Iraq and Syria”, the official added, using an alternative name for the group.
Adnani, a Syrian born in 1977, was ISIS’ most recognised leaders, at the heart of a sophisticated propaganda, and recruitment machine that produced slick videos and sustained a huge social media presence.
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 U.S. State Department described him as the “main conduit for the dissemination of [ISIS] messages”.
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He was arrested in May 2005 in Anbar province and is believed to have spent some time between 2005 and 2010 at the USA detention facility Camp Bucca. The U.S. has limited its involvement to attacking Islamic State group positions.
