ISIS confirms death of 'minister of war'

Several months after the Pentagon announced that Abu Omar al-Shishani was likely killed in an airstrike, an Islamic State–affiliated news agency said Wednesday that ISIS's "minister of war," one of the most wanted ISIS militants, was killed in Iraq in March.

The Amaq news agency said al-Shishani, also known as Omar the Chechen, was killed in combat in Shirqat, Iraq, south of Mosul. ISIS supporters online have already vowed to launch an offensive in his honor, Reuters reports. The Pentagon described al-Shishani as a close adviser to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as well as the group's war minister.

There are some discrepancies when it comes to al-Shishani's death; ISIS said he was killed in Iraq, a claim backed up by a security expert who spoke with Reuters, but in March, the Pentagon said he was killed in Syria. The head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says al-Shishani was wounded in an airstrike there, and died in the countryside east of Raqqa, speculating that ISIS waited so long to confirm his death because they needed to get a successor in place.

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