BAGHDAD (AP) — The U.S.-led coalition said its troops killed a top militant from the Islamic State group in central Syria early on Friday. The IS figure was described as in charge of planning attacks in Europe and the United States.
Iraq’s counterterrorism agency said it helped the coalition in locating the militant. He was identified as Omar Abdul-Qader, also known by his nom de guerre Abdul-Rahman al-Halabi.
U.S. Central Command said Abdul-Qader was an “operative who posed a direct threat to the U.S. homeland.”
Iraq’s counterterrorism agency said he was head of IS foreign operations. He was involved in the 2013 bombing of the Iranian Embassy in Beirut that killed more than 20 people, including the Iranian cultural attaché, it said.
“We will not relent in pursuing terrorists who seek to attack the United States, our forces, or our allies and partners abroad,” said CENTCOM’s commander, Adm. Brad Cooper.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor, said Abdul-Qader was killed in a raid by the U.S.-led coalition in Syria’s central province of Hama. None of his planned attacks had materialized.
The Observatory’s chief Rami Abdurrahman said Abdel-Qader, a Syrian citizen, was in detention in Lebanon and was later handed to Damascus authorities when Syrian President Bashar Assad was in power. After Assad’s fall last December, Abdul-Qader escaped and was on the run until his death.
The Islamic State group once controlled large parts of Syria and Iraq where the extremists declared a caliphate in 2014, and were known for carrying out brutal acts in both countries in addition to planning deadly attacks throughout the Middle East and the rest of the world.
The extremists were defeated in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria two years later but their sleeper cells remain active.
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Mroue reported from Beirut.
