IS official spokesman ‘killed’ in Syria

DAMASCUS. — Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, the official spokesman for the Islamic State (IS) group who gained notoriety for his frequent calls for jihad, has been killed in the northern Syrian province of Aleppo, the militant group’s media outlet announced on Tuesday. In a statement released on jihadist media sites, the IS group said Adnani was “martyred while surveying the operations to repel the military campaigns against Aleppo”.The message, however, provided no details on whether he was killed in an air strike or ground attack.

The Syria-based jihadist group has been suffering a string of defeats in recent weeks in Aleppo as well as the strategic regions around Jarablus near the Syria-Turkey border.

A senior figure in the IS group’s leadership ranks, Adnani was a familiar figure in jihadist media circles with his frequent calls for attacks on “the infidels”, including Western as well as Shiite Muslim targets. On August 18, 2012, the US State Department put al-Adnani on the Special Designated Global Terrorist List with a $5 million reward for any information on the IS group militant.

While Adnani was widely known as the IS group’s official spokesperson, putting out a global call for attacks, many experts believe he was much more than a mere mouthpiece for the jihadist group.

“He is heavily involved in external operations. He is sort of the administrative ‘yea’ or ‘nay’ at the top of the pyramid,” Thomas Joscelyn, from the Washington DC-based Foundation for Defence of Democracies, told the New York Times earlier this month.

Adnani was also head of Emni, the jihadist group’s secret service, according to the New York Times.

Hours after the announcement, there was no official confirmation of Adnani’s death, though the Pentagon said he had been the target of US air strikes on Tuesday in the al-Bab region of northern Syria.

“We are still assessing the results of the strike, but Adnani’s removal from the battlefield would mark another significant blow to (the Islamic State group),” Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said in a statement. — France24.

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