Alwaght- ISIS Takfiri terrorist group has confirmed its senior commander known as Omar the Chechen (al-Shishani) is dead, months after media outlets reported his killing in Iraq.
According to a Wednesday report of Amaq, the ISIS-affiliated website al Shishani was killed "in the town of Sharqat as he took part in repelling the military campaign on the city of Mosul".
The report did not specify when al Shishani was killed, but the loss of the commander is a significant blow to the Takfiri terrorists, who have suffered a string of setbacks in Iraq this year.
Sources say that al Shishani was likely been killed by Iraqi forces in March during fierce fighting in Sharqat.
Rami Abdelrahman, head of the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said Shishani had been wounded in March and died soon after in Syrian countryside east of Raqqa.
“I confirmed from the doctor who went to see him,” said Abdelrahman, who tracks the war in Syria through a network of contacts. He added that ISIS delayed announcing his death to allow time to line up a successor.
The terrorist, whose name was originally Tarkhan Tayumurazovich Batirashvili, was born in Georgia in 1986. He was reportedly fighting alongside Georgian armed forces during the country’s short war against Russia in 2008.
Hisham al-Hashimi, a Baghdad-based security expert who advises the Iraqi government, said a source in Shirqat said Shishani had been killed there along with several other militants.
Iraqi forces are advancing towards Mosul, the largest city still under the control ISIS. They have mostly surrounded Shirqat, 160 miles (250km) north of Baghdad and last week retook a major air base from the militants to use in the main push on Mosul to the north.
