A spokesperson for the Islamic State (ISIS) jihadist group has been killed in a Joint Special Operations Command raid by the US and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Fighters (SDF), an SDF official confirmed on Sunday, according to The Hill.
SDF Gen. Mazloum Kobani Abdi announced on Twitter that the spokesman, Abu Hassan al-Muhajir, had been targeted in an attack in the village of Ein al Baat.
The Kurdish-led YPG forces also confirmed al-Muhajir’s death.
News of the ISIS spokesman’s death came hours after US President Donald Trump confirmed the death of the group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, providing extensive details about the operation in which he was killed.
Al-Muhajir was promoted to be ISIS spokesman in 2016, after a previous spokesman, Abu Mohammad al-Adnani, was killed in a US airstrike in the Syrian city of Aleppo.
News of Baghdadi’s death followed years of conflicting reports about his fate. A year ago, it was reported that he was still alive, but that injury and poor health had forced him to relinquish control of the terror group.
In 2017, Russia claimed that the ISIS leader might have been among a group of ISIS members who were killed in a Russian air strike south of Raqqa, the group’s former de facto capital in Syria.
US officials had remained skeptical over reports of Baghdadi’s death. Former US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said in July of 2017 he assumes that Baghdadi is still alive.
