ISISISIS’s second-in-command killed in Syria

In the most serious blow to ISIS leadership yet, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, the Islamist group’s second-in-command, was killed by a coalition airstrike.

ISIS announced al-Adnani’s death early Tuesday, but the Pentagon said it could not yet confirm his death. The Pentagon did say that coalition forces had targeted him in a “precision strike” near Al-Bab, a Syrian town near the Turkish border.

“We are still assessing the results of the strike, but al-Adnani’s removal from the battlefield would mark another significant blow to [ISIS],” Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said in a statement.

The BBC notes that al-Adnani was ISIS’s charismatic director of external operations and one of the groups most skillful propagandist. He was formally No. 2 in the organization’s hierarchy, but made it to the top of the U.S.’s ISIS target list, with a $5 million reward placed on his head.

U.S. sources say al-Adnani was wounded several days ago, and died of his injuries in Al-Bab.

There is no information about the country behind the airstrike that killed him, but it may well have been the Turkish air forces – which has been operating in the area, and which is provided with U.S. intelligence on potential ISIS targets.

Al-Adnani made a name for himself in September 2014 by issuing an appeal to European lone-wolves to kill Westerners.

“If you can kill a disbelieving American or European — especially the spiteful and filthy French — or an Australian, or a Canadian, or any other disbeliever from the disbelievers waging war, including the citizens of the countries that entered into a coalition against the Islamic State, then rely upon Allah, and kill him in any manner or way however it may be,” he said in the audio recording.

“Smash his head with a rock, or slaughter him with a knife, or run him over with your car, or throw him down from a high place, or choke him, or poison him.”

“There is a large amount of evidence suggesting that he was tremendously influential in terms of pushing individuals in Western countries to carry out homegrown terrorist attacks,” Evan Kohlmann of Flashpoint, told NBC terrorism analyst.

“He is one of the top figures in ISIS. He is very closely associated with ISIS terrorist operations abroad.”

Al-Adnani crossed the border to Iraq from his native Syria in 2003, joining ISIS’s precursor the Al Qaeda in Iraq, led at the time by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Zarqawi was killed by a U.S. air strike in 2006, but a year earlier al-Adnani was captured and taken into custody by the U.S. military. He was freed in 2010.

He re-joined Al Qaeda in Iraq – which by that time had changed its name to ISIS – and became the organization’s spokesman. He skills caught the eye of the organization’s leadership, and in 2014 he was moved to the operational side of ISIS.

In August 2014, putting a $5 million on his head, the United States described him as a “specially designated global terrorist.”

The U.S.-led coalition has been systematically going after ISIS leadership. In the last six months airstrikes killed the organization’s No. 4 — finance minister Haji Iman — and No. 3, the group’s defense minister, Omar al-Shishani.

“This is a really big blow for ISIS,” Laith Alkhouri, co-founder of Flashpoint, told NBC News. “It’s not going to be what breaks its back but it could break the morale of fighters who idealized him so much.”