Islamic State commander in charge of Europe attacks killed in Syria, U.S. military says

A drone strike carried out by the U.S.-led coalition in northwest Syria has killed a senior member of Islamic State who was in charge of planning attacks in Europe, the U.S. military said Tuesday.

The man killed in Monday’s strike was identified by the U.S. military as Khalid Aydd Ahmad Jabouri. The military’s statement said his death would “temporarily disrupt the organization’s ability to plot external attacks.”

The strike was the latest by U.S. forces to kill a top official with the extremist group that once controlled large parts of Iraq and Syria, where it declared a “caliphate.” From the areas they once controlled, Islamic State planned deadly attacks in Europe that killed scores of people. In recent years, such attacks have decreased because the group lost the last sliver of land it controlled in March 2019.

The extremist sleeper cells are still launching deadly attacks in Syria and Iraq.

Opposition activists in northwest Syria said the man killed showed up in the area about 10 days ago claiming to be a displaced person from the eastern province of Deir el-Zour, bordering Iraq. Jabouri, one of Iraq’s biggest tribes, has a presence in east and north Syria, so the man might have said he was from Deir el-Zour to hide his Iraqi identity. Residents of east Syria speak an Arabic dialect similar to the one spoken in Iraq.

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 rebel-held village of Kefteen. The observatory’s chief, Rami Abdurrahman, identified the dead man as an Iraqi citizen who was struck with a missile as he spoke on his cellphone outside the home he rented.

The opposition Syrian Civil Defense, also known as the White Helmets, said that it evacuated the man from the scene of the attack but that he later died of his wounds.

The strike was the latest in a series of attacks over the last few years targeting Al Qaeda-linked militants and senior members of Islamic State in northwestern Syria.

Most of those killed by U.S. strikes in rebel-held Idlib province were members of Al Qaeda offshoot Horas al-Din, which is Arabic for “Guardians of Religion.” The group includes hardcore Al Qaeda members who broke away from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the strongest insurgent 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 Islamic State.

The founder of Islamic State, Abu Bakr Baghdadi, was hunted down by U.S. forces in a raid in Idlib in October 2019. His successor, Abu Ibrahim Hashimi Qurayshi, was killed in a U.S. raid in February 2022 in northwest Syria.

In October, Syrian rebels killed the group’s new leader, Abu Hassan Hashimi Qurayshi, and he has since been repalced by Abu Hussein Husseini Qurayshi.

None of the Qurayshis are believed to be related. “Qurayshi” is not their real name but comes from “Quraish,” the name of the tribe to which the prophet Muhammad belonged. Islamic State claims that its leaders hail from this tribe and “Qurayshi” serves as part of an Islamic State leader’s nom de guerre.