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President Trump congratulated US Central Command forces Monday for conducting a successful weekend airstrike in Syria targeting a senior “terrorist leader.”
“US forces conducted a precision airstrike against a member of al-Qaeda in Syria this weekend,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “The terrorist leader was working with al-Qaeda across the region.”
“Congratulations to CENTCOM Commander Gen. Michael Kurilla, and the US warfighters who dealt Justice to another Jihadi threatening America and our allies and partners,” the president added.
The airstrike took place on Saturday and resulted in the death of a “senior finance and logistics official in the terrorist organization Hurras al-Din (HaD), an Al-Qaeda affiliate,” according CENTCOM.
“The airstrike is part of CENTCOM’s ongoing commitment, along with partners in the region, to disrupt and degrade efforts by terrorists to plan, organize, and conduct attacks against civilians and military personnel from the U.S., our allies, and our partners throughout the region and beyond,” the combatant command force said in a statement.
Kurilla said US forces will “continue to relentlessly pursue terrorists in order to defend our homeland, and U.S., allied, and partner personnel in the region.“
The operation marked at least the fifth airstrike conducted or enabled by CENTCOM against ISIS and Hurras al Din since Trump took office.
The strikes against ISIS have taken place in Iraq, conducted by Iraqi forces, while the operations against Hurras al Din have all been in neighboring Syria.
US Africa Command forces have separately conducted at least two airstrikes in the last month targeting ISIS-Somalia terrorists in the eastern African nation.
Hurras al-Din, formed in 2018 after the Nusrah Front terror group broke off from al Qaeda, operates primarily in Syria’s Idlib Province and is believed to have as many as 2,500 members, according to the National Counterterrorism Center.
The group “advocates attacks against the West and Israel to expel foreign influence from Muslim lands, and it seeks to set the conditions necessary to form a new caliphate across the Levant and the broader Middle East” and could “pose a threat to US and other Western interests outside of Syria” according to the NCC.
