ISISDeath of ISIS’s most senior military leader confirmed
A senior ISIS leaders, Omar the Chechen, has died after being seriously injured in a U.S.-led coalition strike in northeastern Syria, the Pentagon confirmed Monday. The Pentagon’s announcement clears up the fate of Omar al-Shishani a week after a U.S. official said the most-wanted militant had been targeted in a 4 March attack on the jihadist’s convoy. Shishani was one of the most-wanted ISIS leaders, and the United Stateshas put a $5 million reward on his head.
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A senior ISIS leaders, Omar the Chechen, has died after being seriously injured in a U.S.-led coalition strike in northeastern Syria, the Pentagon confirmed Monday.
The Pentagon’s announcement clears up the fate of Omar al-Shishani a week after a U.S. official said the most-wanted militant had been targeted in a 4 March attack on the jihadist’s convoy (“Senior ISIS leader Abu Omar al-Shishani killed in U.S. strike,” HSNW, 9 March 2016).
“We believe he subsequently died of his injuries,” Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, told AFP.
On Sunday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said Shishani had been “clinically dead” for several days.
Daily Beast reports that Shishani, whose real name was Tarkhan Batirashvili, was one of the most-wanted ISIS leaders, and the United States put a $5 million reward on his head.
He was a Chechen who grew up in the Pankisi Gorge, a mainly ethnic Chechen region of the former Soviet state of Georgia.
In May 2013, when ISIS began moving into Syria from Iraq, he was appointed the group’s military commander for the north of the country.
Richard Barrett of the New York-based Soufan Group has described him as ISIS’s “most senior military commander,” adding that he had been in charge of key battles.
Shishani was not, however, a member of ISIS’s political leadership.
