U.S. forces killed a senior operative of the al-Qaeda-linked group Hurras al-Din in northwestern Syria this weekend, U.S. Central Command said.
The Saturday, Feb. 15 strike in northwestern Syria killed a member of the al-Qaeda-affiliated Hurras al-Din group, described by CENTCOM as a “senior finance and logistics official.” Hurras al-Din, a Salafist militant group formed during the Syrian Civil War, said in January that it was dissolving at the direction of al-Qaeda leadership, but U.S. forces have continued to target leaders of the group.
“We will continue to relentlessly pursue terrorists in order to defend our homeland, and U.S., allied, and partner personnel in the region,“ CENTCOM commander Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla said in the brief announcement.
CENTCOM did not provide any additional information on the strike, including if anyone else was killed. The United Kingdom-based monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that the attack was done via drone, targeting and killing two operatives in a car near Uram al-Jawz in Syria’s Idlib province. Witnesses, the monitoring group said, saw multiple drones from the U.S.-led international coalition in the area.
Saturday’s airstrike was the second in just over two weeks targeting leaders of the group. On Jan. 30 another drone strike killed Muhammad Salah al-Za’bir, a senior member of the Hurras al-Din, also in the Idlib area.
The U.S.-led coalition fighting ISIS in Iraq and Syria has carried out several airstrikes and raids against the group and other jihadist organizations in northwestern and northeastern Syria for some time. In December, the same day that the Assad regime fell, U.S. forces struck 75 ISIS targets in central Syria, one of the largest single-day operations against the group since it was ousted from its last stronghold in the country in 2019.
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