WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — A top Islamic State group commander known as “Omar the Chechen” is dead after suffering injuries in a US-led coalition strike in northeastern Syria, the Pentagon confirmed Monday.
The announcement would appear to clear up the fate of the notorious Omar al-Shishani, a week after a US official said the most-wanted militant had been targeted in a March 4 attack on the jihadist’s convoy.
“We believe he subsequently died of his injuries,” Navy Captain Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, told AFP.
On Sunday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said Shishani had been “clinically dead” for several days.
Shishani — the nom de guerre of Tarkhan Batirashvili — was one of the IS leaders most wanted by Washington, which put a $5 million bounty on his head.
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