ISIL foreign ops chief blown to bits...

Pentagon says it targeted ISIL foreign ops chief

By Nahal Toosi and Bryan Bender

The Pentagon on Tuesday said it had targeted a top leader of the Islamic State, hours after the group's propaganda arm announced he had been killed in northern Syria.

Abu Muhammad al-Adnani was one of the terrorist network's longest-serving members, according to the group's Amaq News Agency, which said he was killed "while surveying the operations to repel the military campaigns against Aleppo." The group said his death would only increase its members' resolve to "exact revenge against the enemies and to strike out against them."

The Pentagon said that coalition forces had conducted a "precision strike" near Al Bab, a town on the northeastern outskirts of Aleppo, Syria's largest city, aimed at Adnani.

"We are still assessing the results of the strike, but Al-Adnani's removal from the battlefield would mark another significant blow to ISIL," Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said.

Cook described Adnani as the "principal architect of ISIL's external operations" and "ISIL's chief spokesman"; some reports have described him as the network's No. 2 official in Syria.

"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 said.

According to a New York Times report in March, Adnani headed ISIL's "external operations unit," directing attacks against foreign targets in Europe and beyond. The United States had offered a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture or death, after the State Department named him a "specially designated global terrorist" in August 2014.

In an audio clip released a month later, Adnani threatened to attack Westerners, “especially the spiteful and filthy French.” He urged his fellow Muslims to join him in the cause of jihad, and by any means at their disposal: “Smash his head with a rock, or slaughter him with a knife, or run him over with your car."

Adnani also warned U.S. President Barack Obama in starkly personal terms, calling him a "mule of the Jews."

"You are vile. And you will be disappointed, Obama," Adnani said. "Is this all you were capable of doing in this campaign of yours? Is this how far America has reached of incapacity and weakness? Are America and all its allies from amongst the crusaders and atheists unable to come down to the ground? Have you not realized—oh, crusaders— that proxy wars have not availed you nor will they ever avail you? Have you not realized, O mule of the Jews, that the battle cannot be decided from the air at all? Or do you think that you are smarter than Bush, your obeyed fool, when he brought the armies of the cross and placed them under the fire of the mujahidin on the ground? No, you are more foolish than him."

According to a U.N. dossier, Adnani had been an active member of ISIL's precursor group, the Islamic State of Iraq, since 2003. He was arrested in May 2005 and jailed for five years. After his release, he left Iraq to run ISI's operations in northern Syria, then subsequently joined ISIL. The dossier describes him as a close associate of ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Aleppo has been the scene of some of the most horrific battles of the conflict in Syria, where President Bashar Assad has spent the last five years battling an array of rebel and jihadist groups eager to oust him from power. The city has seen fierce fighting in recent weeks, with a variety of anti-Assad groups working desperately to break a siege by government forces.

The U.S. is supporting moderate rebel forces in Syria. It also is trying to come to an agreement with Russia, which backs the Assad regime, to coordinate airstrikes against ISIL and other groups.

"The U.S. military will continue to prioritize and relentlessly target ISIL leaders and external plotters in order to defend our homeland, our allies and our partners, while we continue to gather momentum in destroying ISIL's parent tumor in Iraq and Syria and combat its metastases around the world," the Pentagon said in its statement.