Oct. 8 (UPI) — The U.S. military has killed a senior member of an Al-Qaida-affiliated terrroist group in Syria, U.S. Central Command said Tuesday.
Muhammad Abd-al-Wahhab al-Ahmad was killed Thursday in a U.S. CENTCOM airstrike, the exact location in Syria was not made public.
“U.S. forces in the Middle East remain postured to disrupt and defeat efforts by terrorists to plan, organize and conduct attacks,” Adm. Brad Cooper, CENTCOM commander, said in a statement.
“We will continue to defend our homeland, warfighters, allies and partners throughout the region.”
CENTCOM identified al-Ahmad as an “attack planner” with Ansar al-Islam, a military group designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the United States in March 2004.
According to the nonpartisan Council on Foreign Relations think tank, Ansar al-Islam, meaning Supporters of Islam, is a militant Islamic Kurdish separatist movement that seeks to reshape Iraq as an Islamic state and was reportedly formed in 2001 with support from al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden.
The air strike comes a little under two months since CENTCOM forces killed a senior ISIS member and key financier in a northern Syria raid on Aug. 19.
In late February, CENTCOM forces killed a senior military leader of the Al-Qaida-affiliated Hurras al-Din terrorist group in an airstrike in northwest Syria.
