Russia claims it has killed Islamic State’s ‘minister of war’ in Syria

MOSCOW: Russia claimed on Friday to have killed several top commanders of the Islamic State group in an air strike in Syria, including the US-trained “minister of war” who has a $3 million bounty on his head.

“As a result of a precision air strike of the Russian air forces in the vicinity of Deir Ezzor city, a command post, communication centre and some 40 ISIS fighters have been killed,” the Russian defence ministry said in a statement posted on Facebook.

“According to confirmed data, among the killed fighters are four influential field commanders including Deir Ezzor emir Abu Mohammed al-Shimali,” the ministry said.

Gulmurod Khalimov, known as the IS group’s minister of war and the highest-ranking defector from ex-Soviet Tajikistan, suffered a “fatal injury,” it added.

Reports of Khalimov’s death have surfaced before, and the Tajik interior ministry said it could not immediately confirm the claim. “We are working with our Russian colleagues to obtain reliable information,” a spokesman told AFP.

Khalimov headed the Tajik interior ministry’s special forces unit and received American training before joining IS in 2015, pledging allegiance to the jihadist group in a video released in May 2015. The high-profile defection had rocked the country.AFP