Senior Al-Qaeda leader Salim Abu-Ahmad killed in US drone strike in Syria

US special operations forces have neutralized a ‘senior Al-Qaeda leader’ Salim Abu-Ahmad in a drone strike conducted outside the Syrian city of Idlib on Sept. 20, top US defense officials confirmed to Fox on Thursday. Abu-Ahmad was responsible for planning, funding, and approving trans-regional Al Qaeda attacks. After the attack, the US Central Command [CENTCOM] informed in an official statement, "US forces conducted a kinetic counterterrorism strike near Idlib, Syria on a senior al-Qaeda leader.”  US Navy LT Josie Lynne Lenny added in a statement, “Initial indications are that we struck the individual we were aiming for, and there are no indications of civilian casualties as a result of the strike.” 

“This strike continues US operations to degrade international terrorist networks and target terrorist leaders who seek to attack the US homeland and its interests and allies abroad,” Army Maj. John Rigsbee, a CENTCOM spokesman told Military Times. CENTCOM, although, did not immediately divulge the information about the type of aviation asset used in the military strike. 

[US drone strike on white vehicle linked to Al-Qaeda terrorist in Idlib. Credit: Twitter/@Wahid__Agha]

[US drone strike.Credit: Twitter/@Wahid__Agha]

The US-coalition drone strike also killed at least two senior Jordanian and a Yemeni commander of Huras al-Din [HaD] or The Guardians of Religion Organization, a hardline Syrian rebel faction with leadership ties to al-Qaeda, the Syrian press had reported. It had identified one casualty of the strike as general military commander Qassam al-Urduni, and the other Bilal al-Sanaani, the commander of the group’s so-called “desert army” dominated by al-Qaida-linked terrorists. “Horas al-Din are hardcore al-Qaida elements who broke away from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the strongest insurgent group in the Idlib enclave,” Associated Press reported. 

US forces had 'lifted an unidentified body'

Al-Mohrar Media, an activist collective in northern Syria, meanwhile identified one of the victims killed as Horas al-Din’s general military commander, known as Qassam al-Urduni, or “Qassam the Jordanian”. In December, last year, a US-led coalition drone strike in Syria had killed senior Horas al-Din commander, the Jordanian citizen Bilal Khuraisat, also known as Abu Khadija al-Urduni.

Sept. 20 US-led drone strike had targeted a vehicle that was moving on the rural road in rebel-controlled northwestern Syria. White Helmets, a Civil Defense team, had told on-ground reporters for AP that the US forces had lifted an unidentified body from the car along the Idlib-Binnish road east of Idlib province. Meanwhile, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor, had confirmed in further reports that the white car was carrying a terrorist linked to al Qaeda. Parts of Idlib and neighbouring Aleppo provinces in Syria are a stronghold of the radical Islamist terror factions including al-Qaida-linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.