On Wednesday, the Russian defense ministry took credit for an airstrike that killed ISIS leader Abu Muhammad al-Adnani near Aleppo, Syria.
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A USA 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”.
Russian Federation did not provide evidence other than its statement, and the claim could not be independently verified.
He said it was clear that USA intelligence had infiltrated top levels of IS and was increasingly aware of the movements of senior figures.
The Defense Department drone strike was conducted with help from American special operations forces working with the Central Intelligence Agency, the official said. “It would be amusing if not for the character of the campaign the Russians have undertaken in Syria”.
However, Russia has been assisting the Syrian government’s military in the region, where different stretches of land are controlled by a hodgepodge of forces including the regime of Bashar Assad, ISIS, Kurdish militias and US -backed rebels.
The same month, a spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry told The Washington Post that he estimated civilian casualties from months of Russian airstrikes to be zero because Russian warplanes never targeted population centers.
“We have no information to support Russia’s claim that they also carried out a strike against Adnani”, Pentagon Press Secretary Pete Cook said at a briefing today.
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.
The Sunni militant group did not say whom it blamed for the airstrike.
The United States and Russian Federation have both intervened in the Syrian conflict with airstrikes and other military support, but they remain fundamentally opposed over the fate of Assad’s regime. The West has accused Russian Federation of indiscriminate bombing of civilians and more-moderate rebel groups, including those backed by the United States.
The Soufan Group, a Washington-based consultancy firm that monitors IS activities, said that if confirmed, al-Adnani’s death would be one of Islamic State’s “most significant personnel losses”. A later statement vowed to avenge his death.
The Pentagon is still assessing the airstrike near Al Bab to confirm Adnani’s death. “He’s been responsible for ISIL’s external plotting and directly responsible for recruiting foreign fighters”. He was born in Syria about 39 years ago and was a prominent member of the al-Qaida terror network before aligning himself with Islamic State, where he was considered second in rank to the group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Another US official, again speaking on condition of anonymity, said the strike was carried out by a Predator drone that fired a Hellfire missile at a auto in which Adnani was believed to have been traveling.
The government and mainstream rebel groups, which between them hold most of Syria’s western, most populous, regions, have focused on their battle for control of Aleppo, Syria’s biggest city before the war, and a strategic prize.
So who was this man and why is his reported death important?
A Syrian news website, Syrian View, reported that Adnani was killed just outside Bab around 3 p.m.by a coalition airstrike that hit his auto, killing him and another Islamic State fighter. The report could not be independently confirmed.
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Details of his militant career emerged in online eulogies and statements by the Islamic State group and its supporters. Kalashnikovs are not enough.
