The Central Command (CENTCOM) of the United States Armed Forces has announced this Sunday that its troops have killed two senior officials of the terrorist organization Islamic State (EI) in an operation in the eastern syria.
CENTCOM said in a statement that the operation took place early Sunday at 2:57 a.m. local time, when US forces carried out a “successful helicopter raid” that resulted in the death of “two IS officers.”
The US identified one of the deceased as Annasa provincial Islamic State official “who was involved in the group’s deadly conspiracy and facilitation operations in eastern Syria,” according to the statement, which did not elaborate on the other jihadist.
The note also did not reveal where exactly the operation took place, which was carried out “unilaterally” by the United States and in which, according to initial evaluations, no civilians were injured or killed.
“The death of these IS officers will disrupt the terrorist organization’s ability to plan and carry out further destabilizing attacks in the Middle East,” CENTCOM spokesman Joe Buccino said in statements collected in the statement.
Involvement of Kurdish forces?
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that the US operation was carried out jointly with special units of the Democratic Syrian Forces (SDF), a Kurdish-led alliance allied with Washington.
The NGO, based in London but with a wide network of collaborators on the ground, indicated that the incursion took place in Deir al-Zur, where American “helicopters”they attacked a house with “heavy machine guns”.
This comes a few weeks after the Islamic State announced the death of its leader, Abu al Hasan al Qurashi, who according to Washington was killed in October in an operation by rebel groups in the southern Syrian province of Deraa.
The United States leads an international coalition fighting IS in Syria and Iraq, and the two previous leaders of the terror group were killed in operations by their troops in Idlib province, the last opposition stronghold in northwestern Syria.
