ISIS confirms death in Aleppo of its senior spokesman

Islamic State chief spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, a long-serving prominent leader of the jihadist group who steered its terrorist operations in the West, was killed in Aleppo, the Islamist Amaq News Agency reported Tuesday. He was said to have been killed "while surveying the operations to repel the military campaigns against Aleppo,” but the statement did not say when, where and how he died.

His death will damage two key areas of ISIS operations, its sophisticated use of social media to reach a global audience and the organization of crude forms of violence for terror outside Iraq and Syria.

ISIS holds territory in the province of Aleppo, but not in the city where rebels are fighting Syrian government forces.