ISIS Military Commander Omar al-Shishani Dies Again

By Jeralyn, Section War In Iraq
Posted on Fri Jul 15, 2016 at 07:08:00 AM EST
Tags: Omar al-Shishani (all tags)

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The Pentagon said it killed the red-bearded ISIS military commander Omar al-Shishani in an airstrike in March. (Background here.) ISIS chatter refuted this. Some said he had been wounded, others said he was just fine. Al-Shishani, who headed up the Army of Immigrants and split from Jaish al-Muhajireen wal-Answar in 2013 when he pledged allegiance to ISIS leader al Baghdadi, has been declared dead at least five times.

Wednesday, Amaq News Agency, which is affiliated with ISIS but not an official ISIS media group, announced al Shishani died a few days ago in preparation of the upcoming battle to take back Mosul.

And the Pentagon has now admitted it was wrong in March, and al-Shishani was killed this week. [More...]

Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said on July 14 that the United States is still working to confirm whether Omar al-Shishani was killed in the latest strike on July 10 as he met with 16 other IS leaders.

Despite having proclaimed in March that the red-bearded Russian nicknamed "Omar the Chechen" was believed dead from wounds sustained in an air strike at that time, Cook said the United States got indications very recently that he was not in fact dead, and that he would be at the July 10 meeting.

There has been criticism of his military abilities, claiming his mistakes cost a lot of jihadists their lives. He was added to the U.S. designated terrorist list in 2014 (press release here.)

As of mid-2014, Batirashvili was a senior ISIL commander and Shura Council member located in al-Raqqah, Syria. He was identified as the ISIL military commander in a public video distributed by the group in late June 2014. Batirashvili oversaw an ISIL priso