Top ISIS Military Commander Killed in US Airstrike
A top leader of the Islamic State has died from wounds suffered in a U.S. airstrike in Syria.
The ethnic Chechen jihadi, Omar al-Shishani, was easily recognized by his red beard. He was one of the most prominent ISIS leaders, serving as the group's military commander in Syria.
A senior Iraqi intelligence official and the head of a Syrian activist group say al-Shishani died outside the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa in Syria.
The Syrian group says ISIS "brought in a number of doctors to treat Shishani, but they were not able to" save him.
The spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition, U.S. Army Col. Steve Warren, said on Tuesday that the coalition was able to "assess that he is dead" and that it "got the word Monday morning."
Warren described al-Shishani as a "very important figure" in the Islamic State group who was hit as part of a stepped-up campaign of U.S.-led airstrikes targeting ISIS leadership.
Despite some territorial losses, ISIS still controls large swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria, including Iraq's second largest city of Mosul and also Raqqa, the group's main stronghold in Syria.
