According to the Pentagon, an airstrike launched by the US -led coalition on Tuesday targeted Adnani, a chief spokesman and recruiter for ISIS who has encouraged external attacks.
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Top Islamic State (IS) group strategist Abu Mohamed al-Adnani has been killed in Syria, robbing the jihadists of their propaganda chief and a key architect of attacks in the West.
“Only al-Baghdadi is a more important leader, and al-Adnani was probably positioned to succeed al-Baghadi if he was killed”, Thomas Joscelyn, a researcher with the USA -based Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, said in an email to The Associated Press.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a statement Wednesday that a Russian Su-34 bomber carried out a strike against as many as 40 ISIS militants, including Adnani.
However, a United States defense official slammed the claim saying, “It would be laughable but for the very real humanitarian suffering Russian Federation has inflicted… We are assessing the results of that strike”.
USA says it is still assessing the assessing the results of the airstrike.
Hours after the announcement, there was no official confirmation of Adnani’s death, though the Pentagon said he had been the target of USA air strikes on Tuesday in the al-Bab region of northern Syria.
Russian Federation has been flying its own bombing campaign in Syria in support of leader Bashar al-Assad since past year, but this is the first time they have claimed to have killed a top-ranking ISIS leader.
“That’s a joke”, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss military operation.
The Soufan Group, a Washington-based consultancy firm that monitors IS activities, said that if confirmed, al-Adnani’s death would be one of IS’s “most significant personnel losses”.
He was reported to have been involved in organising a series of high-profile IS attacks overseas that killed hundreds, including in Paris, Brussels and Istanbul. He is also believed to have directed the attacks on the Brussels and Istanbul airports, and the bloody hostage attack in Bangladesh.
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 vehicle in which Adnani was believed to have been travelling.
“I think the United States are very close to killing Baghdadi the next time”, Hashimi said.
Al-Adnani, whose real name was Taha Sobhi Falaha, was born in the northern Syrian province of Idlib. He crossed the border and joined al-Qaida in Iraq, a precursor to IS, after the 2003 US -led invasion.
It was the first time Moscow claimed to have killed a top-ranking IS leader. He was a religious judge in Iraq’s militant-held western Anbar area before taking on the role of the spokesman for IS’s precursor organization, reflecting how trusted he had become as a veteran member of the group. Islamic State had announced his death through its media outlet Amaq.
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Earlier this year, Adnani called for massive attacks during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
