WASHINGTON — The U.S. military carried out a drone strike in Syria on Tuesday that officials said killed a top Islamic State commander, the third major U.S. counter-terrorism operation in the northwest of the country in the past month.
The attack killed Maher al-Agal, the leader of the terrorist group’s Syrian branch and one of its top five leaders worldwide, and seriously injured another militant, according to statements from the White House and the military’s Central Command. Al-Agal was responsible for “aggressively pursuing the development of ISIS networks outside Iraq and Syria,” the military said.
“His death in Syria removes a key terrorist from the field and significantly deteriorates ISIS’ ability to plan, resource and conduct their operations in the region,” President Biden said in a statement.
“It sends a strong message to all terrorists who threaten our homeland and our interests around the world,” he added. “The United States will be relentless in its efforts to bring you to justice.”
The drone strike was the latest in a series of US military operations against ISIS and Al Qaeda in Syria, which have been relatively rare since the fall of the so-called Islamic State caliphate in 2019.
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On June 16, Army Delta Force commandos seized Hani Ahmed al-Kurdi, a top Islamic State bomber and operations facilitator, also known as Salim, in a ground attack in Aleppo, Syria. Nine days later, the United States launched an airstrike in the province of Idlib that, according to the military, killed Abu Hamzah al Yemeni, a senior leader of Hurras al-Din, the branch of Al-Qaeda in Syria.
The US attack on Tuesday came as Mr. Biden prepared to leave for Israel and Saudi Arabia, his first visit to the Middle East as president. The trip will largely focus on Iran’s nuclear program and malicious activities in the region. A White House official said on Monday that Russia was looking for hundreds of surveillance drones from Iran, including missile-firing drones, to use in the war in Ukraine.
There are still vivid memories of the smoldering threat from Al Qaeda and ISIS, with US intelligence officials saying there are about 10,000 fighters who have moved into guerrilla operations in Iraq and Syria since the collapse of the Caliphate.
A risky raid into northwestern Syria by US Special Operations forces in early February resulted in the death of Islamic State chief general Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi. The two-hour attack by helicopter commandos came days after the end of the largest U.S. combat engagement with the Islamic State since the end of its caliphate. US forces supported a Kurdish-led militia in northeast Syria that fought for more than a week to evict Islamic State fighters from a prison they had occupied in the city of Hasaka.
Hundreds of people were killed in the fighting, which provided stark evidence that the group’s ability to sow chaotic violence persists, counterterrorism specialists said.
The US operation in February that resulted in the death of Mr al-Qurayshi resembled an October 2019 attack in which Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the previous leader of the Islamic State, died when he detonated a suicide vest when US troops launched a shelter raided. near where lord al-Qurayshi was.
“It is clear that ISIS members are entrenched in northwestern Syria, even though their leaders are still being arrested and killed there,” Colin P. Clarke, a counter-terrorism analyst at the Soufan Group, a security consultancy based in New York, said Tuesday. . † “It seems more likely that they have extremely limited options and that their freedom of movement is restricted to a handful of areas where they believe they can blend in with other jihadists and large civilian populations.”
