- ISIS top commander Omar the Chechen survives the March 4 U.S. airstrike
- The U.S. military earlier suggested that he was “likely killed” in the air attack
- A monitoring group says the ISIS commander was seriously hurt, but still alive
Top Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) commander Omar al-Shishani, also known as Omar the Chechen, survived the United States airstrike in northeast Syria last week; contrary to earlier reports that he was “likely killed.”
Zee News said the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, citing its sources in Syria, confirmed that a U.S. air attack targeted the convoy of Omar the Chechen on March 4; killing his bodyguards and leaving him seriously injured but alive.
“He`s not dead,” the Observatory`s director Rami Abdel Rahman said.
Rahman told AFP that the injured ISIS commander was taken from the Hasake province to a hospital in Raqqa, the Islamic State’s stronghold in Syria, where he was given medical care by a jihadist doctor of European origin.
Al-Shishani ranked among the U.S. government’s most wanted terrorists with a multi-million bounty on his head. The U.S. Rewards for Justice Program is offering $ 5 million for information that would lead to his elimination from the battlefield.
Omar al-Shishani is only a nom de guerre. The ISIS commander’s real name is Tarkhan Tayumurazovich Batirashvili. He once fought as a rebel in Chechnya before joining the Georgian army in 2006.
Al-Shishani has been falsely reported killed for several occasions. There were reports in 2014 that he had been killed in various parts of Syria and Iraq in May, June, August and October, but all of them were proven to be untrue.
Taimouraz Batirashvili, al-Shishani’s father, said he cannot confirm his son’s fate.
“I know nothing about the death of my son. They announce his death almost every month,” he said.
Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook described Shishani as “a battle-tested leader with experience who had led ISIL (another acronym for the extremist group) fighters in numerous engagements in Iraq and Syria”.
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