A statement from Isis said that Adnani had been killed while surveying the operations to repel the military campaigns against Aleppo.
A US defence official said on Tuesday night that a coalition air strike earlier in the day had targeted Adnani in the town of al-Bab.
Adnani was
"martyred while surveying the operations to repel the military campaigns against Aleppo", Isis' Amaq news agency said, without giving details about how he died.
Adnani started one of Isil’s most notorious threats, intended to inspire Muslims living in Europe to turn on their adopted countries, particularly France.
He urged Muslims to “kill a disbelieving American or European – especially the spiteful and filthy French,” adding:
“Smash his head with a rock, or slaughter him with a knife, or run him over with your car, or throw him down from a high place, or choke him, or poison him.”
Aymenn Jawad Tamimi, an expert on jihadist groups, said Adnani's death "is significant symbolically and in pointing to the wider decline of ISIS"
"If a coalition air strike hit him, it shows intelligence penetration by the coalition is very high. Otherwise it would not have been possible to take out so many high-ranking figures," he said.
Source: Telegraph/BBC
