US drone strike takes out ISIS chief in Syria

Maher al-Agal was killed and one of his top aides seriously wounded while on a motorcycle outside Aleppo.

The remains of Maher al-Agal’s motorbike. Picture: AFP

A man whom US officials called the leader of Islamic State in Syria has been killed in a drone strike while riding a motorcycle in the northern part of the country.

Maher al-Agal was killed on Tuesday near Jindires in northern Syria, and one of his top aides was seriously injured in the ­attack, said Pentagon Central Command spokesman Dave Eastburn.

The volunteer Syrian Civil Defence Force, known as the “White Helmets”, said the attack targeted the two while they were on a motorcycle outside Aleppo.

President Joe Biden said the strike “takes a key terrorist off the field and significantly degrades the ability of ISIS to plan, resource, and conduct their ­operations in the region”.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed Agal’s death and said he was the Islamic State governor for the Levant.

The US Central Command called the victim “one of the top five” leaders of Islamic State overall. “In addition to being a senior leader within the group, al-Agal was responsible for ­aggressively pursuing the development of IS networks outside of Iraq and Syria,” it said.

According to a spokesman for the US-allied Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces, both the men who were targeted had links to Ahrar al-Sharqiya, an armed group operating in northern Syria. The group has integrated former leaders and members of ISIS and other jihadist groups, and has conducted attacks against Kurdish targets inside Turkish-controlled areas of northern Syria. Sharqiya was responsible for the 2019 assassination of Kurdish female politician Hevrin Khalaf.

The strike came five months after a US night raid in the town of Atme, which led to the death of the overall ISIS leader, Abu Ibrahim al-Qurashi. US officials said Qurashi died when he detonated a bomb to avoid capture.

AFP