BEIRUT: A US helicopter raid in Syria on Monday killed a senior leader of the militant Islamic State (IS) group who planned attacks” in Europe and the Middle East, US Central Command said.

“Early this morning, April 17, US Central Command forces killed Abd al Hadi Mahmud al Haji Ali, a senior ISIS Syria leader,” Centcom said in a statement, using another acronym for IS.

It said he was an “operational planner responsible for planning terror attacks in the Middle East and Europe”.

The operation was launched “after intelligence revealed an ISIS plot to kidnap officials abroad to use as leverage”, the statement said.

An earlier Centcom statement said the raid in northern Syria had “resulted in the probable death of the targeted individual”, without naming him.

“Two other ISIS operatives were killed in the raid,” both statements said, without identifying them either.

No civilians or US troops were hurt, the first statement said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the strike targeted a building in Al Suwaydah village about 25 kilometres west of the town of Jarabulus, on Syria’s northern border with Turkiye.

The Britain-based war monitor, which relies on sources on the ground, said the strike killed the main target and two other fighters.

The IS member had previously been imprisoned in Kurdish-held Manbij, south of Jarabulus, the Observatory said.

He had taken refuge in the Al Suwaydah area around six months earlier under the protection of a pro-Turkish group, it added.

Local residents said the man was killed as he was trying to flee and that his body was handed over to one of his brothers.

A Turkish-backed rebel group deployed in the Al Suwaydah area said in a statement that two of its fighters were killed after they went to the site of the raid.

Published in Dawn, April 18th, 2023