US military kills senior Daesh commander in Syria drone strike
This file photo shows a U.S. Predator drone over Kandahar Air Field, southern Afghanistan, Jan. 31, 2010. (AP Photo)


A senior member of the Daesh terrorist group, who was allegedly in charge of planning attacks in Europe, has been killed in a drone strike carried out by the American-led coalition in northwestern Syria, the U.S. military said Tuesday.

The man killed Monday in the strike was identified by a U.S. military statement as Khalid Aydd Ahmad al-Jabouri. The military statement added that his death "will temporarily disrupt the organization's ability to plot external attacks."

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said Monday that one person was killed in a drone strike near the opposition-held village of Kefteen.

The opposition’s Syrian Civil Defense, also known as the White Helmets, said it evacuated the man from the scene of the attack and he later succumbed to his wounds.

This is a locator map for Syria with its capital, Damascus. (AP Photo)

The strike was the latest in a series of attacks over the past years targeting al-Qaida-linked terrorists and senior members of Daaesh in northwestern Syria.

Most of those killed by U.S. strikes in the opposition-held Idlib province over the past years were members of the al-Qaida offshoot Horas al-Din, which is Arabic for "Guardians of Religion."

The group allegedly includes hardcore al-Qaida members who broke away from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the strongest armed group in Idlib province.

In February, a drone strike killed two men, whom local activists initially identified as Horas al-Din members. The Observatory later said that one of the two killed was a senior member of the Daesh terrorist group that was defeated in Syria in March 2019.