Pentagon: Reports misled us about Shishani’s death

By Kasim Ileri

WASHINGTON

The Pentagon admitted Thursday that Daesh’s war minister was not killed in March, contradicting intelligence reports at the time.

Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook told reporters at a press briefing that Omar al-Shishani was again targeted July 10 at a meeting with 16 other Daesh leaders near Mosul.

Cook was cautious this time, noting that the department is still working to confirm Shishani’s death.

The Pentagon announced in March that Shishani was killed in the northeastern Syrian town of Shadadi and officials, including defense chief Ash Carter, on several occasions touted the targeting of Shishani as a significant success of the U.S.-led anti-Daesh coalition effort.

Pressed to explain how the Pentagon declared Shishani’s death in March if in fact he was not dead, Cook said intelligence pictures were misleading.

“The intelligence that we had at the time led us to believe that he had been killed,” Cook said. “We recognized at that time that our intelligence picture was incomplete.”

He declined to get into details about whether the department is certain about the July airstrike.

Media sources in the region, reported Wednesday that Shishani was targeted and killed in an airstrikes citing accounts from Daesh’s news agency.

Although Cook maintains that intelligence materials are “rigorously” double checked and processed, conflicting stories about Shishani’s demise have cast a shadow on other U.S. military announcements about the deaths of militants across the Middle East.