A senior al Qaeda leader has been killed in a drone strike in Syria, U.S. defense officials confirmed to Fox News Thursday. Salim Abu-Ahmad was killed in a U.S. airstrike near Idlib, Syria on Sept. 20. He was responsible for planning, funding, and approving trans-regional al Qaeda attacks.
A U.S. Air Force MQ-1B Predator unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), carrying a Hellfire missile flies over an air base after flying a mission in the Persian Gulf region.
(Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)”There are no indications of civilian casualties,” U.S. defense officials said. The Associated Press reported Sept. 20 that a drone strike hit a vehicle traveling on a rural road in rebel-controlled northwestern Syria, killing at least one person.The Civil Defense team, known as White Helmets, said the unidentified body was lifted from the car along the Idlib-Binnish road east of Idlib province. TOP REPUBLICAN SAYS ISIS SUICIDE BOMBER WAS PRISONER RELEASED FROM BAGRAM AIR BASE, CITES INDIAN INTELU.S. Central Command said American forces had conducted a “kinetic counterterrorism strike” near Idlib province targeting a senior leader of the militant group al Qaeda.”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,” said Navy Lt. Josie Lynne Lenny in a statement. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the vehicle had been carrying a militant linked to al Qaeda. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPThe U.S. has carried out attacks in Idlib before, targeting al Qaeda militants and the leader of the Islamic State group, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who was hiding in the province after fleeing from eastern Syria.The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Source link
