A drone strike in Syria allegedly killed a senior leader of an extremist group with ties to Al-Qaeda on June 27, the U.S. Central Command said on Tuesday.
CENTCOM claims the U.S.-led coalition strike was carried out against Abu Hamzah al Yemeni, a senior leader of Hurras al-Din, an organization U.S. intelligence believes is linked to the terrorist organization founded by Osama bin Laden.
The drone strike was carried out near the northern Syrian city of Idlib, believed to be an insurgent stronghold and the last region of the country to remain outside of state control.
Al Yemeni was allegedly riding a motorcycle alone when the strike occurred. CENTCOM and Syrian ground forces report that the strike caused no additional casualties.
“Violent extremist organizations, including Al-Qaeda-aligned organizations such as Hurras al-Din, continue to present a threat to America and our allies,” CENTCOM said in a statement. “Al-Qaeda-aligned militants use Syria as a safe haven to coordinate with their external affiliates and plan operations outside of Syria. The removal of this senior leader will disrupt Al-Qaeda’s ability to carry out attacks against U.S. citizens, our partners, and innocent civilians around the world.”
Russian and U.S. forces continue to operate in Syria and maintain a “deconfliction line.”
The deconfliction line is essentially an open phone line used by the two nations to inform one another of potential strikes that could cause unintended conflict between Russian and U.S. forces, or forces allied with the two nations.
According to reports, the U.S. did not use the deconfliction line to notify Russia of the strike in advance, claiming it was unnecessary.
The U.S. military has not released the type of munition used in the attack except to state that it was a “kinetic strike,” a term that indicates the device was non-explosive.
In June 2020, the U.S. military used a Hellfire R9X missile fired from a drone to reportedly kill Khalid al-Aruri, a Jordanian citizen believed to be the leader of Hurras al-Din, also in Idlib.
The Hellfire R9X is a non-explosive, “kinetic” missile design that uses blades to slice and cut targets on impact. It has been used in combat since 2017 and is credited with killing several extremist organization leaders and suspected terrorists, including Jamal Ahmad Mohammad Al-Badawi, the individual accused of masterminding the USS Cole bombing.
Photographs published by Arab News show a motorcycle being loaded into a truck that the organization claims was being ridden by al Yemeni at the time of his death.
The relatively intact remnants of the vehicle shown in the photographs are consistent with the kind of destruction caused by an R9X missile.
Earlier in June, U.S. forces reportedly detained a senior ISIS leader the coalition says has been teaching militants how to make explosive devices for use in terrorist attacks.
According to the U.S.-based coalition forces, the arrest was the largest operation in Syria by U.S. forces since the killing of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in 2019. Al-Baghdadi killed himself using an explosive vest to avoid capture by U.S. forces.
U.S. forces back the Syrian Democratic Forces in that nation’s ongoing civil war that began in 2011. Russian forces support the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is also backed by Iran and Hezbollah.