The founder of the militant Islamic State group news agency was reportedly killed with his daughter in an air strike last week in eastern Syria.
The militant group itself has not reported the death of the founder of Aamaq news agency, Baraa Kadek AKA Rayan Meshaal. Activists said Kadek was close to the IS leadership, gaining their trust and reportedly meeting with the enigmatic leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
His brother, Hozaifa, and former friends reported Kadek’s death, saying he died in a suspected air strike by the US-led international coalition fighting IS that hit his home in the town of Mayadeen in Deir el-Zour province.
Amaq News Agency was first noticed by SITE during the Siege of Kobanî (Syria) in 2014, when its updates were shared among ISIS "fighters". It became more widely known after it began reporting claims of responsibility for terrorist attacks in Western countries, such as the 2015 San Bernardino attack, for which ISIL officially claimed responsibility the next day. An Amaq cameraman shot the first footage of the capture of Palmyra in 2015.
Amaq launched an official mobile app in 2015 and has warned against unofficial versions that reportedly have been used to spy on its users. It also uses a Telegram account. It had a WordPress-based blog, but it was removed without explanation in April 2016.
Amaq publishes a stream of short news reports, both text and video, on an encrypted mobile app. The reports take on the trappings of mainstream journalism, with "Breaking News" headings, and "embedded" reporters at the scenes of ISIS battles. The reports try to appear neutral, toning down the jihadist language and sectarian slurs ISIS uses in its official releases.