MOSCOW — Russia claimed Wednesday it carried out the airstrike in Syria that killed one of the Islamic State’s most senior leaders, but U.S. officials said they had no evidence to back Moscow’s account and were examining whether the militant was hit in an American strike.
The statement from Russia’s Defense Ministry cited “intelligence channels” confirming that the attack Tuesday near Aleppo killed Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, the Islamic State’s main spokesman and a leading strategist involved in planning attacks overseas.
The claim could not be independently verified. It also came after the Pentagon said it had targeted Adnani in an airstrike in a different location in the Aleppo region, and was still assessing the results of the attack.
Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook told reporters that U.S. officials had “no information” to support the Russian claim. White House spokesman Josh Earnest also said he was “not aware of any facts” to back Moscow’s report.
The U.S. strike was conducted by an unmanned drone firing Hellfire missiles on the northern edge of the town of Bab, about three miles from the town center, said a U.S. official. The Pentagon believes Adnani was traveling in a vehicle at the time with at least one other person, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details of the attack.
The Russian statement said the airstrike by a Su-34 bomber based in Syria killed as many as 40 Islamic State fighters, including Adnani. [Aleppo’s humanitarian crisis deepens] According to the ministry, the strike took place near the village of Maarat Umm Hawsh, a village north of Aleppo and about 16 miles west of Bab, which is controlled by the Islamic State.
The United States and Russia have both intervened in the Syrian conflict with airstrikes and other military support, but remain fundamentally opposed over the fate of the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
Russia, which backs Assad, has portrayed its intervention primarily as a crusade against the Islamic State and other groups it deems “terrorists.” The West has accused Russia of indiscriminate bombing of civilians and more moderate rebel groups, including those backed by the United States.
CONTENT FROM ALLSTATE
How #activism can inspire real change Millennials are taking advantage of new opportunities to share political and social views. If a Russian attack did kill Adnani, it would be an unusual, targeted strike against a senior Islamic State official by Moscow, exhibiting Russia’s growing capabilities in Syria and bolstering the Kremlin’s information campaign that its intervention is legitimate.
The Islamic State had issued a statement announcing Adnani’s death, but gave no information on who carried out the attack. Islamic State says leader killed in Syria Play Video0:44
The Islamic State said one of its longest-serving and most prominent leaders, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, has been killed in Syria. (Reuters) “Al-Adnani’s removal from the battlefield would mark another significant blow to ISIL,” Cook said, using an acronym for the Islamic State.
[Adnani was architect of attacks and rhetoric] “He has coordinated the movement of ISIL fighters, directly encouraged lone-wolf attacks on civilians and members of the military, and actively recruited new ISIL members,” Cook added on Tuesday.
The Islamic State urged followers to avenge Adnani’s death, and vowed to keep fighting even as it suffers setbacks in the battlefield. In an online edition of the Islamic State’s newspaper al-Naba, distributed hours after the announcement of Adnani’s death, the group told its fighters to keep fighting.
“This religion will always stand, unharmed by the death of any person,” the news site said, telling supporters they should “stand up and die” just as Adnani did, al-Naba said, according to a translation carried by the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors militant statements.
The death of Adnani coincides with a string of setbacks for the militants in both Iraq and Syria, where they have been rapidly losing control of some of their most significant strongholds. [Freelance attacks suggest new twist in Islamic State-inspired bloodshed]
Most recently, the group lost Jarabulus, a transit point for foreign fighters on the Turkish border that was recaptured by a joint force made up of Syrian rebels and Turkish troops. Most of the Islamic State fighters who had been based in Jarabulus fled ahead of the advancing force to Bab, a strategically important town about 30 miles east of the city of Aleppo that is expected to become the venue for one of the next important battles.
A Syrian news website called Syrian View reported that Adnani was killed just outside Bab at around 3 p.m. by a coalition airstrike that struck his car, killing him and another Islamic State fighter.
He had been on his way to visit the front lines near the nearby town of Manbij, which was captured two weeks ago by a U.S.-backed Kurdish-led force, the website said. The report could not be independently confirmed. Meanwhile, Islamic State supporters took to various forms of social media to lament the news and call for revenge attacks.
“The Muslims are revived by the blood of those who you kill, and the fire of the jihad is ignited with it, and its flames intensify,” said the Nashir Foundation, a pro-Islamic State group, on its Telegram channel, according to the SITE Intelligence Group.
“Today is the day of revenge. Kalashnikovs are not enough. Today is the dugma [bomb] day,” said another posting by a purported fighter using the name Abu Asim al-Masri. Dugma is a local colloquialism used to refer to truck-sized suicide bombs that are a hallmark of the Islamic State.
Adnani had been widely tipped as a likely successor to the current head of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and the language used in the eulogies further indicated the esteem in which he was held.
“The way he’s being described in the obituaries, the indications of lineage, the epithets, point to him having been the next caliph,” said Aymenn al-Tamimi, an analyst specializing in militant groups with the Philadelphia-based Middle East Forum.
Adnani was the most recognizable figure in the group after Baghdadi, especially now that dozens of its senior leaders have now been killed. “I can’t think of many figures who are still alive,” he said. “This is part of a wider decline of the Islamic State; the territorial losses, manpower losses, loss of senior personnel.”