Russian military claims airstrike that killed senior ISIS leader

0
511

MOSCOW – Russia claimed Wednesday it carried out the airstrike in Syria that killed one of the Islamic State’s most senior leaders along with dozens of other fighters for the militant group.

The statement from Russia’s Defense Ministry cited intelligence channels confirming that the attack Tuesday near Aleppo killed Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, the Islamic State’s main spokesman and a leading strategist involved in planning attacks overseas.

The Islamic State had issued a statement announcing Adnani’s death.

In Washington, the Pentagon said it had targeted Adnani with an airstrike on the same day in or near the Aleppo province town of Al-Bab, which is controlled by the Islamic State.

Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said in a statement that the U.S. military was still assessing the results of the strike, and could not confirm that the United States was responsible for Adnani’s death.

The Russian statement said the airstrike by a Su-34 bomber based in Syria killed as many as 40 Islamic State fighters, including Adnani.

According to the Ministry, the strike took place near the village of Ma’arat Umm Hawsh, a village located to the north of Aleppo and about 16 miles west of Al-Bab, where the Pentagon said it had carried out its strike.

“Al-Adnani’s removal from the battlefield would mark another significant blow to ISIL,” Cook said, using an acronym for the Islamic State.

“He has coordinated the movement of ISIL fighters, directly encouraged lone-wolf attacks on civilians and members of the military, and actively recruited new ISIL members,” Cook added on Tuesday.

The Islamic State urged followers to avenge Adnani’s death, and vowed to keep fighting even as it suffers setbacks in the battlefield.

In an online edition of the Islamic State’s newspaper Al-Naba, distributed hours after the announcement of Adnani’s death, the group told its fighters to keep fighting.

“This religion will always stand, unharmed by the death of any person,” the news site said, telling supporters they should “stand up and die” just as Adnani did, Naba said, according to a translation carried by the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors militant statements.

The death of Adnani coincides with a string of setbacks for the militants in both Iraq and Syria, where they have been rapidly losing control of some of their most significant strongholds.

Most recently, the group lost Jarabulus, a transit point for foreign fighters on the Turkish border, that was recaptured by a joint force made up of Syrian rebels and Turkish troops.

Most of the Islamic State fighters who had been based in Jarabulus fled ahead of the advancing force to Al-Bab, a strategically important town about 30 miles east of the city of Aleppo that is expected to become the venue for one of the next important battles.

A Syrian news website called Syrian View reported that Adnani was killed just outside Al Bab at around 3 pm by a coalition airstrike that struck his car, killing him and another Islamic State fighter.

He had been on his way to visit the front lines near the nearby town of Manbij, which was captured two weeks ago by a U.S.-backed Kurdish-led force, the website said. The report could not be independently confirmed.

Meanwhile, Islamic State supporters took to various forms of social media to lament the news and call for revenge attacks.

“The Muslims are revived by the blood of those who you kill, and the fire of the jihad is ignited with it, and its flames intensify,” said the Nashir Foundation, a pro-Islamic State group, on its Telegram channel, according to the SITE Intelligence Group.

“Today is the day of revenge. Kalashnikovs are not enough. Today is the dugma (bomb) day,” said another posting by a purported fighter using the name Abu Asim al-Masri, using a local colloquialism used to refer to truck-sized suicide bombs that are a hallmark of the Islamic State.

Picture: AFP

(c) 2016, The Washington Post ยท Andrew Roth, Liz Sly

Facebook Comments