ISISSenior ISIS leader Abu Omar al-Shishani killed in U.S. strike

Published 9 March 2016

Abu Omar al-Shishani, a Syrian-based Georgian national who was a senior ISIS leader, was killed in a 4 March air strike by the U.S.-led coalition. U.S. officials said that the militant was killed near the Syrian town of al-Shadad. He had a reputation as a close military adviser to ISIS’s leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who relied heavily on Shishani.

Flag of the Islamic State // Source: commons.wikimedia.org

Abu Omar al-Shishani, a Syrian-based Georgian national who was a senior ISIS leader, was killed in a 4 March air strike by the U.S.-led coalition.

Reutersquoted U.S. officials to say that the militant was killed near the Syrian town of al-Shadad. 

The United States had offered up to $5 million reward for information about Shishani, who served as the group’s de facto minister of war. The Toronto Star reports that Shishani, who was born in 1986 in Georgia, had a reputation as a close military adviser to ISIS’s leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who relied heavily on Shishani.

Two U.S. officials told Reuters that a determination about Shishani’s fate was not certain and that the results of the operation still were being reviewed. A third official just said Shishani was targeted in the strike.

The US State Department said Shishani was identified as the Isis’s military commander in a video distributed by the group in 2014.

U.S. intelligence said that Shishani, whose name was originally Tarkhan Tayumurazovich Batirashvili, oversaw a prison facility near Raqqa in which ISIS possibly held foreign hostages.