ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The United States announced late Thursday it had killed two senior officials of the Islamic State (ISIS) in an airstrike in Syria, on the same day that American forces eliminated another prominent ISIS official in the country.
“U.S. forces conducted a successful airstrike in northern Syria, killing both Abu-Hashum al-Umawi, a deputy Wali of Syria, and another senior ISIS official associated with him,” the American military’s Central Command (CENTCOM) said.
CENTCOM added that the operation did not cause any civilian casualties and its forces conducted the task unscathed.
“This strike will degrade ISIS’ ability to destabilize the region and strike at our forces and partners,” General Michael “Erik” Kurilla, the CENTCOM commander, said about the operation. “Our forces remain in the region to ensure the enduring defeat of ISIS.”
US forces earlier in the day carried out a raid in a part of northeast Syria (Rojava) controlled by the Syrian government south of the Kurdish-held city of Qamishli, killing an ISIS official and wounding two of his associates.
CENTCOM later confirmed on Twitter that the raid had taken down “Rakkan Wahid al-Shammri, an ISIS official known to facilitate the smuggling of weapons and fighters to support ISIS operations.”
“During the operation, the targeted individual was killed and one of his associates was wounded. Two additional associates were detained by U.S. forces,” the statement added.
The two operations are the latest in a series of US attacks against senior ISIS officials, with the terror group continuing to pose a serious threat to Syria and Iraq despite being territorially defeated.
“US CENTCOM is committed to our allies and partners in the enduring defeat of ISIS,” CENTCOM Communications Director Joe Buccino said.
A July drone strike by American forces in the country’s northwest killed Maher al-Agal, the leader of ISIS in Syria, five months after a secret US operation took down the terror group’s top leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi again in northwest Syria’s Idlib, a region largely controlled by rebel groups backed by Turkey.
Three years prior, longtime ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi died in a similar US forces raid in another area of Idlib. Baghdadi detonated a suicide vest after being cornered in a tunnel with three of his children.
ISIS rose to power across swathes of Syria in 2014 but it was territorially defeated five years later. Despite the group being devoid of any territorial control, it continues to pose security risks through kidnappings, hit-and-run attacks, and bombings in the war-torn country.
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