Georgian-born ISIS Commander Targeted by US Drone Strike
TBILISI - ISIS top commander Abu Omar al-Shishani was targeted and may have survived a massive US drone strike earlier in the week, according to the independent Syrian Observatory for Human Rights group.
Shishani, a Georgian national of Chechen origin, was originally reported to have been killed when his headquarters was attacked by multiple waves of manned and unmanned aircraft that targeted Shishani’s base camp in the Syrian town of al-Shadadi, according to US Defense Department officials at the Pentagon.
US officials were unable to immediately confirm reports that Shishani had been killed in the strike, but information from Kurdish YPG units operating in the area said the attack had killed at least 12 ISIS militants, including Shishani.
Peter Cook, a spokesmen for the US Defense Department, said Monday the Pentagon needed more time to assess the results of the strike as actual intelligence on the ground remained unconfirmed.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights – an independent humanitarian aid organization with access to all sides of the nearly five year-old Syrian Civil War – said in a statement through the group’s director, Rami Abdulrahman, that Shishani was badly wounded but not killed and had been moved to the Islamic State’s de facto capital Raqqa in eastern Syria.
Shishani is regarded as one of ISIS’ top military commanders and a close confidant of the terrorist group’s supreme leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, having served as the Islamic State’s war minister.
The US previously offered a USD 5 million reward for Shishani after he was declared a specially designated global terrorist in September 2014.
War ravaged al-Shadadi has served as Shishani’s base of operations since he took command of ISIS’ elite special operations battalions in late 2015.
The ginger-bearded Shishani has held several high ranking military positions within ISIS, including as overall field commander in several of the terrorist group’s most successful campaigns in 2013-2015.
Born Tarkhan Batirishvili in January 1986, he was raised in the impoverished village of Birkiani in Georgia’s isolated Pankisi Gorge, home to a 20,000-strong Chechen community.
As a teenager, Shishani – whose nom de guerre translates as Omar the Chechen – joined anti-Russian rebel groups fighting for the fledgling Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. The groups used Pankisi as a training and supply center during the brutal 1999-2001 Second Chechen War.
He later served in the US-trained Georgian armed forces and rose to the rank of sergeant. During the 2008 Russian-Georgian War, Shishani was part of a special reconnaissance unit during the Battle of Tskhinvali, charged with relaying the positions of Russian tanks while behind enemy lines.
Shishani was honorably discharged in 2010 after contracting tuberculosis, but later fell afoul of local law enforcement officials when he was arrested and served 16 months in prison for illegal arms possession.
Unable to find employment following his arrest, Shishani’s neighbors have said in interviews that he quickly turned away from the community after embracing a radical form of Islam known as Takfirism – a fringe form of Sunnism that labels other Muslims and non-Muslims as apostates.
After arriving in Syria in 2012, Shishani took command of the al-Qaeda-linked Mujahireen Brigade and its successor Jaish al-Mujahireen wal-Ansar – units comprised mainly of Russian-speaking militants from the North and South Caucasus, including many who had combat experience in the bloody post-Soviet wars of the 1990s.
Shishani’s death would be a major blow to ISIS. His battlefield expertise and Russian language skills made him a formidable military and recruitment tool for the terrorist group.
Pankisi’s Chechens, who traditionally practice a moderate form of Sufi Islam, have experienced a major spike in the number of residents who have been radicalized and hope to follow in Shishani’s footsteps.
The beleaguered community has seen dozens of its youth leave for Syria in an attempt to join ISIS.
British and American intelligence services estimate that up to 3,000 Russian-speaking recruits currently serve the Islamic State, the overwhelming number of whom originate from the Caucasus.