The U.S. Army announced Sunday the death of two senior Islamic State officials during an airstrike in eastern Syria, Central Operations Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement.
CENTCOM described the operation as a «helicopter strike» that began at 02.57 local time on Sunday. The attack killed these two Islamic State operatives, including one identified as «Anas».
«Anas,» according to the note, was «involved in the group’s facilitation and conspiracy operations in eastern Syria.»
According to CENTCOM, no civilians were killed or injured in this operation.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a London-based activist organization with sources inside the country, specifies that the operation would have taken place in the locality of Al Zar, Deir Ez Zor governorate, in the northeast of the country, in collaboration with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), mostly Kurdish.
When these two individuals refused to surrender, according to the account of the observatory, the helicopters of the US forces «attacked their location with heavy machine guns, killing both of them», in what is the first joint operation between the US and the SDF since the beginning two weeks ago of the latest Turkish offensive against these militias, which Ankara denounces as a terrorist group, while Washington perceives them as an essential ally against jihadism.
