A senior ISIS official intently related to Maher was critically injured in the course of the strike, Central Command mentioned in an announcement. An preliminary assessment indicated that there have been no civilian casualties.
“The elimination of those ISIS leaders will disrupt the terrorist group’s potential to additional plot and perform assaults,” mentioned Col. Joe Buccino, a spokesman for Central Command.
The strike passed off exterior of Jindayris in northwest Syria the discharge mentioned.
“The elimination of those ISIS leaders will disrupt the terrorist group’s potential to additional plot and perform assaults,” Buccino added.
Tuesday’s strike was a part of ongoing efforts to fight ISIS as varied elements of Syria and Iraq have seen a resurgence of the terrorist group in current months.
President Joe Biden mentioned the killing “takes a key terrorist off the sector and considerably degrades the flexibility of ISIS to plan, useful resource, and conduct their operations within the area.”
“Just like the U.S. operation in February that eradicated ISIS’s total chief, it sends a robust message to all terrorists who threaten our homeland and our pursuits around the globe,” Biden wrote in an announcement on Tuesday. “America will likely be relentless in its efforts to convey you to justice.”
He thanked members of the armed forces and mentioned the strike “demonstrates that america doesn’t require hundreds of troops in fight missions to establish and remove threats to our nation.”
“Hani Ahmed al-Kurdi, generally known as Salim, was chargeable for coordinating terrorist actions throughout the area,” the coalition mentioned in an announcement. “He was instructing others on making explosive units, supporting the development of improvised explosive machine services, and facilitating assaults on US and associate forces.”
It got here a number of months after ISIS chief Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi was killed throughout a US counterterrorism raid in northwest Syria. The operation was the largest US raid within the nation for the reason that 2019 mission that killed ISIS chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Final September, the army focused a senior al Qaeda chief close to Idlib, Syria, in accordance with an announcement from Central Command. One month later, the army carried out a drone strike towards Abdul Hamid al-Matar, one other senior al Qaeda chief, Central Command mentioned.
And in December, the army focused Musab Kinan, a senior chief of al Qaeda affiliate Hurras al-Din, close to Idlib. Central Command opened an investigation into the opportunity of civilian casualties from the strike, however the Pentagon was unable to offer updates on the time.
This story has been up to date with further background data and an announcement from President Biden.
