(Reuters) – An Islamic State (IS) commander was killed in Syria on Monday in a U.S. military-led raid, U.S. Central Command (CentCom) said.
Khalid Ahmad al-Jabouri was held responsible for planning attacks in Europe and had developed IS’s command structure, according to CentCom, which oversees US military operations in the Middle East, Africa and Asia central and southern.
No civilians were killed or injured in the strike that claimed the jihadist leader’s life, added CentCom, which said that IS “continues to pose a threat to the region and beyond”.
“Although weakened, the group remains capable of conducting operations within the region with the will to strike beyond the Middle East”.
Jabouri’s death should “temporarily disrupt the group’s ability to plan attacks abroad”, he said.
In a report published in February, the United Nations put the number of active members or supporters of IS in Syria and Iraq at between 5,000 and 7,000, about half of them fighters.
The Islamic State organization controlled vast territories in Iraq and Syria at its height in 2014, before being pushed back by an international coalition led by the United States.
The jihadist group announced at the end of last year the appointment of Abu al-Hussein al-Husseini al-Kuraïchi as its head after the death of its previous leader, killed in southern Syria.
(Written by Akriti Sharma Bharat Govind Gautam in Bangalore, and Tom Perry; French version Jean Terzian and Jean-Stéphane Brosse, editing by Kate Entringer)
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