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Pentagon: ISIS Fighter Known as 'Desert Lion' Dead

The Pentagon announced Monday that a coalition airstrike killed Shaker Wahib, also known as Abu Wahib.
Image: Islamic State In Iraq And The Levant
The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, is an unrecognized state and active Jihadist militant group in Iraq and Syria influenced by the Wahhabi movement.Abaca, file
By Jim Miklaszewski and Courtney Kube

A murderous ISIS member who became known as the 'Desert Lion' because of his brutality has been killed by a coalition airstrike, the Pentagon announced Monday.

The man, Shaker Wahib, also known as Abu Wahib, was a mid-level ISIS fighter in Iraq and considered a brutal executioner. He gained notoriety after a haunting 2013 video in which he pulled over three Syrian Alawite truck drivers in along the Syrian-Anbar province border and began to question them about religion — asking how many times they pray, etc.

He then declared them bad Muslims, sentenced them to death, made them kneel down and shot them one by one.

Wahib was once seen by some analysts as the most direct heir to former al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi.

A defense official told NBC News that Wahib never became that heir or ascended beyond a mid-level fighter.

There are also unconfirmed reports that he may have served in Bucca Prison in 2009, but escaped during a 2012 attack that saw more than 100 prisoners freed.

He was killed in Iraq, along with three other ISIS fighters, while they were traveling in a car.

Jim Miklaszewski

Jim Miklaszewski is the chief Pentagon correspondent for NBC News. On 9/11, he was the first at the scene to report that the Pentagon had been attacked and has since led the network's coverage of the war in Afghanistan.

Since joining NBC in 1985, Miklaszewski was a White House correspondent during the Clinton and Bush administrations, covering President Clinton's transition from Little Rock, his many trips abroad including Moscow and the Middle East and his reelection. He was also an NBC floor reporter at the Democratic and Republican conventions in 1996 and 2000.

In the Bush White House, Miklaszewski reported on the Gulf War with Iraq, summits with Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin and the Bush reelection campaign in 1992.

Miklaszewski has logged considerable foreign experience with battlefront coverage of wars in Lebanon, El Salvador and the Falkland Islands. He also covered the United States air raid on Libya, and the "tanker wars" in the Persian Gulf.

Courtney Kube

Courtney Kube is a correspondent covering national security and the military for the NBC News Investigative Unit.