The northwestern Syrian village of Barisha in the Idlib province along the border with Turkey on October 27, 2019 [Getty]
The US military announced Thursday that a recent airstrike had killed an Islamic State group official in northwest Syria.
In a post to social media, US Central Command (CENTCOM) said its forces “conducted a precision airstrike in northwest Syria killing Rakhim Boev, a Syria-based ISIS official,” using another name for IS.
The post on X said Boev was “involved in planning external operations threatening U.S. citizens, our partners, and civilians.”
The accompanying image depicts an SUV vehicle with a bashed-in windshield and roof.
News agency AFPÂ previously reported that two people were killed in separate drone strikes Tuesday, on a car and a motorcycle, in the northwestern bastion of the former rebels who now head the Syrian government.
A call to CENTCOM seeking confirmation that the incidents are related was not immediately returned.
The twin drone strikes in the Idlib region mirror the US-led coalition’s past strikes on operatives in the area.
At its peak between 2014 and 2017, IS held sway over roughly a third of Syria and Iraq, where it imposed its extreme interpretation of Islamic sharia law, gaining a reputation for shocking brutality.
During a meeting in Riyadh last month, US President Donald Trump called on his Syrian counterpart Ahmed al-Sharaa to help Washington prevent a resurgence by IS.
Three days after Trump’s meeting with Sharaa, Syria announced it had raided IS hideouts in the country’s second city, Aleppo, killing three fighters, detaining four and seizing weapons and uniforms.
The U.S. drawdown has heightened concern among allies that IS might find a way to free some 9,000 fighters and their family members, including foreign nationals, held at prisons and camps guarded by the U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
There have been at least two attempted jailbreaks since Assad’s fall, the SDF has said.
Trump and President Tayyip Erdogan of neighbouring Turkey want Sharaa’s government to assume responsibility for these facilities.
Erdogan views the main Kurdish factions as a threat to his country. But some regional analysts question whether Damascus has the manpower needed.
Syrian authorities have also been grappling with attacks by suspected Assad loyalists, outbreaks of deadly sectarian violence, Israeli airstrikes and clashes between Turkish-backed groups and the SDF, which controls about a quarter of the country.
