(Washington) The American army announced on Friday that it had killed during a raid in Syria a senior leader of the jihadist armed group Islamic State (IS), adding that four soldiers had been injured in the operation on Thursday evening.
“The target, a senior ISIS operative, Hamza al-Homsi, was killed,” the US military command for the Middle East (CENTCOM) said in a statement.
The four soldiers, hit by an explosion during this attack in northeastern Syria, are being treated in Iraq. A working dog taking part in the operation was also injured, the statement said.
CENTCOM spokesman Colonel Joe Buccino later clarified that the blast was caused by Homsi, who “oversaw the deadly terrorist network in eastern Syria before he was killed in the raid”.
The four injured soldiers and the dog are in stable condition, he added.
Since the territorial defeat of ISIS in Syria in 2019, several hundred American soldiers, deployed in northeastern Syria as part of the anti-jihadist coalition, continue to fight with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF, dominated by the Kurds) and to target suspected ISIS members.
On February 10, another operation carried out with the FDS led to the seizure of weapons and the death of another IS official.
In 2022, two other leaders of the group were killed, one in February, by American special forces in the northwest and the other in October, by former rebels from the province of Daraa (South) supported by the system of government.
In October 2019, the United States announced the death of IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi during an American operation in northwestern Syria.