The US armed forces have apparently killed several members of the al-Qaeda extremist network in an air strike in northwestern Syria.
A meeting of al-Qaeda leaders near the city of Idlib was attacked, said a spokeswoman for the US Army’s Central Command responsible for the Middle East yesterday. According to her, „the elimination“ of these leaders was achieved. Al Qaeda’s ability to carry out attacks is “impaired”.
The US military spokeswoman did not provide any information on the number of deaths in the attack. However, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 14 extremists were killed in the drone-led attack. Among them are six leaders.
Two of these commanders were said to belong to the Hajat Tahrir-al-Sham group (HTS), which was formerly part of the al-Qaeda network.
The UK-based observatory gets its information from a network of informants in Syria. Your information can often hardly be verified by an independent party.
Idlib as the last bastion
The HTS said „a tent that belonged to one of our dignitaries“ was attacked in the village of Jakara, Idlib province. Several people were killed in the process. Idlib is the last rebel bastion in the Syrian civil war. About half of the province is controlled by HTS and other Islamist militias.
A prominent Muslim cleric was killed by a car bomb near the Syrian capital Damascus yesterday, the state news agency SANA reported. Nobody took responsibility for the attack. The 66-year-old Adnan al-Afjuni was the Sunni mufti for the Damascus region and was considered a confidante of the head of state Bashar al-Assad.
