U.S. military said it had killed a senior member of Al-Qaeda’s Syrian branch Hurras al-Din 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. 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 group announced its dissolution last month, in line with orders from Sharaa, who has called on all armed group to disband. It was founded in February 2018, but did not publicly confirm its allegiance to Al- Qaeda until its dissolution announcement in January. The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said a drone strike on a car killed Bayraqdar on Friday. It came after CENTCOM last month reported killing another senior HurrasAlDin operative, Muhammad Salah al-Zabir, in a strike also in the northwest.
