Tue 04 Apr 2023:
The United States says its forces have killed a senior leader of the ISIL (ISIS) group in Syria in a “unilateral strike”.
US Central Command (CENTCOM), in a statement early on Tuesday, identified the man as Khalid Aydd Ahmad al-Jabouri.
CENTCOM said al-Jabouri “was responsible for planning ISIS attacks into Europe and developed the leadership structure” for the armed group.
His death will “temporarily disrupt the organisation’s ability to plot external attacks,” it added.
The raid that killed al-Jabouri happened on Monday.
CENTCOM said no civilians were killed or injured in the raid.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said on Monday that one person was killed in a drone strike near the rebel-held village of Kefteen.
The opposition’s Syrian Civil Defense, also known as the White Helmets, said it evacuated the man from the scene of the attack and he later succumbed to his wounds.
A person was killed by a missile strike from an unidentified drone on the outskirts of the town of Killi, north of #Idlib, #Syria, today, Monday, April 3. Our teams responded and took the injured person to Bab Al-Hawa Hospital, where he died.#WhiteHelmets pic.twitter.com/pnmM9PYuZf
— The White Helmets (@SyriaCivilDef) April 3, 2023
The strike was the latest in a series of attacks over the past years targeting al Qaeda-linked militants and senior ISIS members in northwestern Syria.
Most of those killed by U.S. strikes in the rebel-held Idlib province over the past years were members of al Qaeda offshoot Horas al-Din, which is Arabic for “Guardians of Religion.” The group includes hardcore al Qaeda members who broke away from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the strongest insurgent group in Idlib province.
In February, a drone strike killed two men local activists initially identified as Horas al-Din members. The Observatory later said one of them was a senior member of ISIS.
Despite the defeat of ISIS in Syria in March 2019, ISIS sleeper cells still conduct attacks around Syria and Iraq where they once declared a “caliphate.”
The U.S. military killed other ISIS leaders in Syria over the past few years.
Last month, it said a helicopter raid led by its forces in northeast Syria left senior ISIS leader Hamza al-Homsi dead and four American service members and a working dog wounded.
In February 2021, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, was killed in a U.S. raid in northwest Syria. ISIS founder Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was hunted down by the Americans in a raid in October 2019.
In October, the leader of ISIS, Abu al-Hassan al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, was killed in battle with Syrian rebels in southern Syria.
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