Day after Baghdadi death, his likely successor killed in American airstrike

The spokesman, known by his nom de guerre Abu Hassan al-Muhajir, was being smuggled across northern Syria in the back of an oil tanker truck when it was hit by what witnesses said they believed to be a U.S. airstrike, according to Hussein Nasser, an activist who said he had spoken to people at the scene.

Mazlum Abdi, the head of a Kurdish-led militia that fought the Islamic State with the United States, wrote on Twitter that al-Muhajir had been killed Sunday in an operation coordinated between his forces and the U.S.

U.S. officials could not immediately confirm the reports that al-Muhajir had been killed.

The spokesman issued his last statement in March, calling for retaliation for the killing of 50 Muslims in New Zealand by a white supremacist.

Little is known about him, including his real name and nationality, complicating efforts to confirm that he was the one killed in Sunday’s strike. But terrorism experts considered him a possible successor to al-Baghdadi.