Islamic State's No. 2 man reported killed in Syria

Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, the spokesman and chief strategist of the Islamic State (ISIS) group, was killed Tuesday during battles in Aleppo province, Syria. Adnani, who had been in charge of the militant group's public relations calling for "lone wolf" attacks in the West, had a 5 million U.S. dollar bounty on his head.

"Shaykh Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, the spokesman of the Islamic State, was martyred while surveying the operations to repel the military campaign against Aleppo," the group said through the armed group's Amaq website without giving details about how he died. The U.S. intelligence authorities believe that he was killed during a U.S. air strike on the small town of Al-Bab, north-east of Aleppo city.

The 39-year-old, who was born in Syria, was one of the first foreign fighters to oppose the presence of U.S.-led forces in Iraq after the 2003 invasion and a founding member of the Islamic State, BBC reported. He had overseen the production of propaganda materials, including the gruesome decapitation videos the IS routinely put out, and encouraged "lone wolves" to join the group. He was also deeply involved in coordinating the IS attacks in Paris, Brussels and Dhaka, Bangladesh, and hiring terrorists.

The death of a key IS strategist symbolizes the crisis that the group is facing, as it is suffering a series of military reverses and losing control in both Syria and Iraq. His call on Muslims to intensify attacks on the Islamic State's enemies this summer resulted in one of the bloodiest months of Ramadan in recent memory. In May, he asked, “Were we defeated when we lost the cities in Iraq and retreated to the desert without a city or a land?” Then, he offered an answer, saying, “No, true defeat is losing the will and desire to fight.”

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