Washington: The Pentagon on Monday confirmed that a US air strike killed Daesh leader and spokesman Abu Mohammad Al Adnani in northern Syria in August.
“The strike near Al Bab, Syria, removes from the battlefield ISIL’s [‘Daesh’s] chief propagandist, recruiter and architect of external terrorist operations,” Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said, using an acronym for Daesh.
“It is one in a series of successful strikes against ISIL [Daesh] leaders, including those responsible for finances and military planning, that make it harder for the group to operate.”
The August 30 air strike was conducted by a Predator drone, which fired a Hellfire missile at the car Al Adnani was travelling in.
Officials say Al Adnani was the main spokesman for Daesh, and he had played a major role during some of the group’s most high-profile attacks over the past year, including in Paris, at the Brussels and Istanbul airports, at a cafe in Bangladesh, as well as the downing of a Russian airliner in the Sinai and suicide bombings at a rally in Ankara.
Cook has previously said Al Adnani had coordinated the movement of Daesh fighters, encouraged lone-wolf attacks on civilians and members of the military and actively recruited new Daesh members.
Soon after the strike against Al Adnani, Russia said it was responsible for his death, a claim Pentagon officials dismissed as a “joke.”