BEIRUT: Islamic State has said its spokesman and top strategist Abu Mohamed al-Adnani has been killed in Syria, with both US and Russia claiming credit.
Adnani was IS’s propaganda chief, top recruiter and the reported mastermind of a string of IS-claimed attacks in the West.
In Washington, the Pentagon said US-led coalition forces had targeted Adnani in an air strike in Syria’s Aleppo province on Tuesday but did not immediately confirm his death.
Russia’s military said one of its air strikes had killed Adnani in a bombing raid on Tuesday that left up to 40 IS jihadists dead.
Regardless of who was responsible, analysts say his death will be a major blow to IS, which has suffered a series of setbacks this year including territorial losses in Syria and Iraq and the killings of other top figures.
Adnani was “the most viscerally aggressive ISIS leader in the public eye,” said Charles Lister, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, using one of several names for IS.