US confirms Al-Qaeda leader Salim Abu-Ahmad was killed in drone strike in Syria 

The Pentagon has confirmed that senior Al Qaeda leader Salim Abu-Ahmad was killed in a US drone strike in Syria.

The strike was carried out on September 20 in the Idlib province of Syria, where a vehicle traveling on a rural road in rebel-controlled territory was struck, but the identity of the target was not confirmed until Thursday. 

The strike was conducted hours before the Pentagon said that an Air Force general officer would conduct an investigation into the bungled August 29 drone strike in Afghanistan that killed 10 innocent people, including seven children. 

The Pentagon claimed on Thursday that there were no civilian casualties in the strike that killed Abu-Ahmad. 

‘Salim Abu-Ahmad was responsible for planning, funding, and approving trans-regional al-Qaeda attacks,’ Army Maj. John Rigsbee, a CENTCOM spokesman, told Military Times on Thursday. 

‘There are no indications of civilian casualties as a result of the strike. This strike continues U.S. operations to degrade international terrorist networks and target terrorist leaders who seek to attack the U.S. homeland and its interests and allies abroad,’ he added.  

Following the strike last week, Syria’s Civil Defense team, known as White Helmets, said an unidentified body was lifted from the car along the Idlib-Binnish road east of Idlib province. 

The charred vehicle, split in the middle, lay on the side of the rural road in an orchid.

U.S. Central Command said later that American forces conducted a ‘kinetic counterterrorism strike’ near Idlib province targeting a senior leader of the militant group Al Qaeda, who they did not initially identify.

‘Initial indications are that we struck the individual we were aiming for, and there are no indications of civilian casualties as a result of the strike,’ said Navy Lt. Josie Lynne Lenny in a statement.

A drone is seen in Idlib province around the time of the strike on September 20

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, based in Britain, said the vehicle carried a militant from one of the radical groups operating in the province. The Observatory didn’t identify the group but said it was linked to Al Qaeda.

The U.S. has carried out attacks in Idlib before, targeting Al Qaeda militants and the leader of the Islamic State group, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who was hiding in the province after fleeing from eastern Syria.

Large parts of Idlib and neighboring Aleppo province remain in the hands of Syrian armed opposition, dominated by radical groups including the once al-Qaida-linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. 

There are also over 4 million civilians living in the area, most of them displaced from previous bouts of violence in Syria’s 10-year conflict. 

The Syrian government has vowed to restore control of all of territories outside of its control, but a cease-fire negotiated last year in Idlib has tenaciously held.

Developing story, more to follow.