iStock/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) — ISIS’s official news agency claimed Tuesday that its senior leader and top spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani has been killed in an airstrike in Aleppo, Syria. Pentagon officials said they were aware of the report but could not confirm the claim, tweeted by Amaq News Agency.
The SITE Intelligence Group translated the tweet from Arabic.
“#Breaking Military source to #AmaqAgency: Shaykh Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, the spokesman of the Islamic State, was martyred while surveying the operations to repel the military campaigns against #Aleppo,” read SITE’s translation of the tweet.
Al-Adnani is known mainly as being the top spokesman for ISIS, but he has also been involved in the group’s planning of overseas military attacks.
Because of his high ranking within the ISIS organization the U.S. Department of State’s Rewards for Justice program had placed a $5 million reward for information leading to his death or capture.
“Al-Adnani is ISIL’s main conduit for the dissemination of official messages, including ISIL’s declaration of the creation of an Islamic Caliphate,” reads the program’s website of al Adnani, born in Syria in 1977. “Al-Adnani was one of the first foreign fighters to oppose Coalition Forces in Iraq before becoming ISIL’s spokesman.”
It was unclear what country may have launched the airstrike — normally Russian and Syrian regime aircraft conduct airstrike missions over Aleppo.
American military officials have stressed that American military aircraft do not conduct airstrikes in Aleppo because there is not a major ISIS presence there.
Pentagon officials are seeking to verify the report of al-Adnani’s death.
If al-Adnani did die in an airstrike it would also be unclear if he was killed in a targeted strike or of happenstance from an airstrike targeting an ISIS position.
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