BEIRUT: The US military said on Saturday it had killed a senior member of Al Qaeda’s Syrian branch Hurras al-Din, which announced its dissolution last month, in an air strike in the country’s northwest.

It is the latest US strike this year against the group in Syria. Along with its Western and Arab allies, the United States has emphasised that Syria must not serve as a base for “terrorist” groups after the toppling of president Bashar al-Assad in December.

On Friday, US Central Command (CENTCOM) forces “conducted a precision air strike in northwest Syria, killing Wasim Tahsin Bayraqdar, a senior leadership facilitator of the terrorist organisation Hurras al-Din,” the military said in a statement.

The northwest was the stronghold of interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa’s Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group before it led the rebel offensive that toppled Assad in December. The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said a drone strike on a car killed Bayraqdar.

Last Sunday, CENTCOM said it killed “a senior finance and logistics official” in Hurras al-Din. That came after CENTCOM last month reported killing another senior Hurras al-Din operative, Muham­mad Salah al-Zabir, in an air strike also in the northwest.

The US-based SITE Intelligence Group said Hurras al-Din was founded in Feb 2018. The group did not publicly confirm its allegiance to Al Qaeda until its dissolution announcement in January.

Hurras al-Din dissolved in line with orders from Sharaa, who has called on all armed group to disband. The United States designated Hurras al-Din as a “terrorist” organisation in 2019.

Published in Dawn, February 23rd, 2025