#drone #strike #kills #chief #Syria #Pentagon
A man whom US officials dubbed the leader of the Islamic State militant group in Syria was killed in a drone strike on Tuesday, the Pentagon said.
Maher al-Agal was killed while riding a motorcycle near Jindires in northern Syria and one of his key associates was seriously injured, Pentagon Central Command spokesman Lt. Col. Dave Eastburn told AFP.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed that Agal was killed in a drone strike.
The Syrian Civil Defense Volunteer Force, known as the “White Helmets,” said one person was killed and another wounded in an attack on a motorcycle outside Aleppo, without identifying the victims.
Little information was available about Agal, whom the Observatory named as the Islamic State governor for the Levant.
The US Central Command described him as “one of the top five” leaders of the Islamic State as a whole.
“Al-Agal was not only a senior leader within the group, but was also responsible for aggressively promoting the development of IS networks outside of Iraq and Syria,” the statement said.
According to a spokesman for the US-allied Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces, both men who were attacked had ties to Ahrar al-Sharqiya, an armed group operating in northern Syria.
The group has integrated former leaders and members of Islamic State and other jihadist groups, and has carried out attacks on Kurdish targets in Turkish-controlled areas of northern Syria.
Ahrar al-Sharqiya was responsible for the 2019 assassination of prominent Kurdish politician Hevrin Khalaf, which sparked international condemnation.
The US Treasury Department blacklisted the company in July 2021.
“Ahrar al-Sharqiya committed numerous crimes against civilians, especially Syrian Kurds, including unlawful killings, kidnappings, torture and confiscation of private property,” the finance ministry said at the time.
At the site of the drone attack, there were two small craters in the road and debris from the destroyed motorcycle.
Villagers told AFP that the two IS members did not live in the area where they were killed.
– IS diminished-
Damien Ferre, founder of consulting firm Jihad Analytics, downplayed the attack, saying the Islamic State in Syria is “barely a shadow” of what it once was.
“They are still capable of conducting attacks against Syrian government forces and conducting operations here and there against the Kurdish forces,” he said.
But the group is weak compared to the days of the Islamic State “caliphate,” which controlled large parts of Iraq and Syria between 2011 and 2019, he said.
“It is important to remember that whenever an Islamic State leader is killed, they are immediately replaced,” Ferre added. “It really shouldn’t affect their activities.”
The last two targeted killings of Islamic State leaders have taken place in Turkish-controlled areas of northern Syria, where groups like Ahrar al-Sharqiya are active and have local knowledge of the terrain and families.
The attack came five months after a nighttime US raid on the city of Atme that resulted in the death of Islamic State’s overall leader Abu Ibrahim al-Qurashi.
US officials said Qurashi died when he detonated a bomb to avoid capture.
“The removal of these ISIS leaders will hamper the terrorist organization’s ability to further plot and launch global attacks,” Central Command said.
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