The United States carried out an air strike on Tuesday targeting one of Islamic State’s longest serving leaders, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, a US defense official said after the militant group announced Adnani had been killed.
The US official said the strike targeted a vehicle in the town of al-Bab in Syria but declined to say whether Adnani was killed.
As head of external operations, Adnani was in charge of attacks overseas, including Europe, that have become an increasingly important tactic for the group as its core Iraqi and Syrian territory has been eroded by military losses
ISIS Publishes Adnani’s Eulogy
Amaq reported that Adnani was killed “while surveying the operations to repel the military campaigns against Aleppo”. Islamic State holds territory in the province of Aleppo, but not in the city where rebels are fighting Syrian government forces.
Amaq did not say how Adnani was killed. Islamic State published a eulogy dated 29 Aug but giving no further details.
Recent advances by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias, and by Syrian rebels backed by Turkey, have made inroads into Islamic State holdings in Aleppo province, cutting them off from the Turkish border and supply lines along it.
Iraq said in January that Adnani had been wounded in an air strike in the western province of Anbar and then moved to the northern city of Mosul, Islamic State’s capital in Iraq.
Who Was Adnani?
Adnani is a Syrian from Idlib, southwest of Aleppo, who pledged allegiance to Islamic State’s predecessor al Qaeda more than a decade ago. He was once imprisoned by US forces in Iraq, according to the Brookings Institution.
Al-Adnani was one of the first foreign fighters to oppose Coalition Forces in Iraq before becoming ISIS spokesman.
He has been the chief propagandist for the ultra-hardline jihadist group since he declared in a June 2014 statement that it was establishing a modern-day caliphate spanning large swaths of territory it had seized in Iraq and neighbouring Syria.
Adnani has often been the face of the Sunni militant group, such as when he issued a message in May urging attacks on the United States and Europe during the holy month of Ramadan.