US military says it killed senior leader of al-Qaeda-aligned group in Syria

DAMASCUS (Agencies): American forces killed a senior leader of an al-Qaeda-affiliated militant group in a strike in Syria on Friday, the US military said.

The strike targeted Abu Abdul Rahman al-Makki, who was “a Hurras al-Din Shura Council member and senior leader responsible for overseeing terrorist operations from Syria,” the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a social media post.

“Hurras al-Din is an Al-Qaeda-associated force based in Syria that shares al-Qaeda’s global aspirations to conduct attacks against US and Western interests,” CENTCOM said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor had earlier said that a drone strike on a motorcycle in the southern Idlib countryside had killed Makki.

The US military has around 900 troops in Syria as part of the international coalition against ISIS. The coalition was established in 2014 to help combat the jihadists, who had taken over vast swathes of Iraq and Syria.

American forces periodically carry out strikes in Syria targeting militants from IS — which has since lost the territory it once held — and other groups that are deemed to pose a threat.