Senior Islamic State Leader Dead: Abu Omar al-Shishani Dies in a US Airstrike

A senior Iraqi intelligence official and the head of a Syrian activist group announced on Tuesday that the feared Islamic State leader Abu Omar al-Shishani died last week. The jihadi fighter died on Monday in the eastern suburbs of Raqqa after the U.S. airstrike was performed in Syria, causing him to suffer some major wounds.

The spokesman of the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq, U.S. Army Col. Steve Warren, considered that Abu Omar al-Shishani was dead as he wrote in an email, per Washington Post. A troupe of activists and citizen journalists, called Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, from the terrain of the Islamic State also confirmed that Abu Omar al-Shishani was dead in a post on Twitter.

we have a confirmation that #ISIS leader Abo Omar Al-Shishani got killed by Coalition Airstrike on 04 Mar #Syria pic.twitter.com/Hi3GcPVlTT

— الرقة تذبح بصمت (@Raqqa_SL) March 15, 2016

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdurrahman, explained that Abu Omar al-Shishani was brought in a hospital and even treated by a number of doctors but the Islamic leader didn't make it. Another Iraqi intelligence official, who wanted to keep his identity in secret, revealed that Abu Omar al-Shishani was already buried in Deir el-Zour on Tuesday.

Additionally, Abu Omar al-Shishani was known as one of the most renowned Islamic State leaders, who served as the military commander of the lands they take control of in Syria. Abu Omar al-Shishani, too, was the general military chief after Abu Abdulrahman al-Bilawi, the Iraqi militant, who was executed in June 2014 in the Iraqi city of Mosul, LA Times reported.

Meanwhile, Shadadi, the town in southern Al-Hasakah Governorate in Northeastern Syria, has been suffering the rebel alliance called the Syrian Democratic Forces for quite awhile now. The Kurds in Syria and U.S. consultants has been battling to retake the town and its major junction near the Iraqi border from the Islamic State.