Islamic State’s war minister, ‘Omar the Chechen’, survived US strike, monitor claims

Top Islamic State commander leader Omar al-Shishani, known as Omar the Chechen, was “seriously injured” in a recent US strike in northeastern Syria but not killed, a monitoring group said Wednesday, after a US official said the militant had “likely died” in the assault.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that according to its sources the March 4 strike had indeed targeted the jihadist’s convoy, killing his bodyguards, while he himself “was seriously injured”.

“He’s not dead,” the Observatory’s director Rami Abdel Rahman said.

“He was taken from the province of Hasake to a hospital in Raqa province where he was treated by a jihadist doctor of European origin,” he said. Raqa is IS’s main stronghold.

The United States has stopped short of declaring Shishani dead, but a US official speaking on condition of anonymity said Shishani “likely died” in the assault by waves of US warplanes and drones, along with 12 other IS fighters.

The US official branded Shishani “the ISIL equivalent of the secretary of defence,” using another acronym for the group.