Isil leader who told Muslims to poison or knife enemies killed by air strike in Aleppo
ONE of Isil’s most senior commanders, who urged followers to carry out attacks on Western civilians while serving as the terrorist movement’s official spokesman, has been killed in Syria, the group announced yesterday.
Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, 39, who had been in charge of dispatching terrorists to carry out attacks in Europe, died in Aleppo province. A statement from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) said that Adnani had been killed “while surveying the operations to repel the military campaigns against Aleppo”.
A US defence official said last night that a coalition air strike yesterday had targeted Adnani in the town of al-Bab.
Adnani, a Syrian, was a senior figure around Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the self-styled “caliph” of Isil.
Adnani was the author of one of Isil’s most notorious threats, intended to inspire Muslims living in Europe to turn on their adopted countries, particularly France.
He urged Muslims to “kill a disbelieving American or European – especially the spiteful and filthy French”, adding: “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.”
Adnani’s position as a prime mover behind terrorist attacks in Europe is believed to have made him a priority target for the US and its allies.
In his most recent speech, in May, he urged followers to target the United States and Europe during the holy month of Ramadan, saying attacks on civilians were “dearer and better for us” than military successes.
He was one of the group’s longestserving operatives, pledging allegiance to the founder of its early Iraqi incarnation in 2006.
Adnani, from the western Syrian province of Idlib, joined the jihadist movement in Iraq where he served al-Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who has since been killed.
Aymenn Jawad Tamimi, an expert on jihadist groups, said Adnani’s death “is significant symbolically and in pointing to the wider decline of the Islamic State”.
“If a coalition air strike hit him, it shows intelligence penetration by the coalition is very high. Otherwise it would not have been possible to take out so many high-ranking figures,” he said.
Amaq, the Isil news agency, vowed revenge against the “filthy cowards in the sect of disbelief ”. It said a generation raised in Isil-held territory would avenge Adnani’s death.
Adnani is likely to be succeeded in his military role by the financial comptroller of the group, Iyad alObaidi, also known as Saleh Haifa, said Hisham al-Hashimi, a security analyst who advises the Iraqi government on Isil. The United States designated him a “global terrorist” this year.
Britain and France yesterday called for United Nations sanctions to be imposed against Syria after a UN-led investigation found the regime had carried out chemical attacks. The UN ambassadors from London and Paris described the use of chemical weapons against civilians as a war crime.