4/4/2023–|Last updated: 4/4/202310:05 AM (Makkah)
The US military announced today, Tuesday, that it carried out an air strike yesterday, Monday, that killed a senior leader of the Islamic State organization in northwestern Syria.
The commander of the US Central Command, Michael Korella, said – in a statement – that the dead man was named Khaled Iyad Ahmed al-Jubouri, and that he was “responsible for planning attacks for the organization of the state in Europe.”
He added that the death of al-Jubouri would temporarily disrupt the ability of the state organization to plan external attacks, but stressed that the organization “is still able to lead operations in the region, with a desire to strike areas outside the Middle East.”
He added that the targeted leader contributed to the development of the structure of the organization, which in 2014 took control of large areas of Syria and Iraq before being expelled from it.
The US Central Command confirmed that the air strike did not kill or injure civilians.
For its part, the Civil Defense in the areas controlled by the Syrian opposition said that a person was killed yesterday in an air strike by a drone in Balad Killi in the northern countryside of Idlib.
The Civil Defense added, through its accounts on social media, that its teams provided ambulance to the person who was targeted by the drone and transferred him to Bab Al-Hawa Hospital, where he died.
And last February, the US military announced that it had killed the leader of the Islamic State, Hamza al-Homsi, during a joint operation with the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces in northeastern Syria, and 4 American soldiers were wounded in the operation.
Before that, other leaders of the organization were killed in drone strikes or landing operations.
Among the most prominent of those killed in the US operations in Syria were the two former leaders of the organization, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in October 2019, then Abu Ibrahim al-Qurashi last February 2022 in Idlib Governorate (northwest).
ISIS – which in 2014 took control of large areas of Syria and Iraq – suffered a first defeat in Iraq in 2017, then in Syria in 2019, and lost all of its main areas of control. However, its hidden members still launch attacks, albeit limited ones, in the two countries, especially against the security forces, and the organization also claims attacks in other countries.
