Pentagon: Daesh commander Omar Shishani dead

A senior commander of so-called Islamic State (IS) is dead, the Pentagon has confirmed.

Defence officials said Omar Shishani died from injuries sustained in a recent US air strike in north-eastern Syria.

Earlier reports had suggested Shishani, a Georgian whose real name was Tarkhan Batirashvili, may have survived the attack on a convoy.

Several of his bodyguards were killed in the same bombing.

The strike took place on 4 March near the north-eastern town of Shaddadi, where Shishani had reportedly been sent to bolster local IS forces.

A Pentagon spokesman confirmed to the BBC that the latest assessment was that "he is dead".

On Sunday, monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the IS leader had been "clinically dead" for several days.

Last year, the US offered a $5 million reward for Shishani. It said he had held numerous senior military positions within the group, including "minister of war".

Source: MENA