The Syrian Observatory For Human Rights

US airstrikes kill al-Qa’ida leaders in Syrian base

US aircraft have carried out the first strike against jihadist targets in rebel-held Syria for two years and killed al-Qa’ida leaders accused of plotting to attack the West.

The strikes on Sunday night on the border of Aleppo province in the rebel-held Idlib pocket struck a base of Hurras al-Din, a jihadist group fighting the Assad regime.

At about the same time Israeli warplanes struck sites associated with Iran-backed militias in and around Homs and Damascus, killing a number of fighters. The ­regime said four civilians had also been killed and 21 injured by a missile near Damascus.

An anti-aircraft missile fired by regime forces at the Israeli jets missed its target and exploded outside a village in Cyprus, but no one was hurt.

Among those killed by the US airstrikes were two Algerians, two Tunisians, an Egyptian and a Syrian, according to the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights. Hurras al-Din, or Guardians of Religion, is known to have many foreign fighters. It split from the biggest ­jihadist militia in the Idlib pocket, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, when the latter disaffiliated from al-Qa’ida.

The US is one of many countries that have found reason to bomb different areas of Syria as the country has imploded in the past eight years. It considers operations against jihadists in the northwest of the country as separate from its previous support for non-extreme rebel groups in the civil war and its decision to send troops and bombers to support Kurdish-led forces fighting Islamic State.

In 2014 Pentagon officials claimed that a sub-unit of senior al-Qa’ida leaders from headquarters somewhere on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border had infiltrated rebel-held northwest Syria. A series of bomb attacks on al-Qa’ida operatives in or near Idlib province followed, including one that killed Abu Khayr al-Masri, often described as deputy to al-Qa’ida’s overall head, Ayman al-Zawahiri. He died when the car in which he was a passenger was hit by a missile in February 2017.

A strike the following month on a mosque complex killed 49 men and youths but aroused huge controversy. Residents said that the men were not al-Qa’ida operatives but a religious study group. The Idlib pocket is supposed to be protected by a ceasefire agreement although the Assad regime is already attempting a significant and so far unsuccessful offensive against its southern fringes.

Under an agreement between Turkey, which backs the rebels, and Russia and Iran, which support the regime, Turkey was ­expected to neutralise jihadist groups: something that has proved to be beyond its capabilities. Instead the US appears to have stepped in.

Thomas Joscelyn, a researcher at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies, which is based in Washington, said that splits ­between and within jihadist groups may have presented the US with an opportunity to attack suspected leaders. Hurras al-Din has been riven by a dispute ­between senior commanders, two of whom were reportedly among those killed in the strike. “The ­hierarchy of al-Qa’ida in Syria is not clear. It’s murky because of all the infighting,” Mr Joscelyn said.

Hurras al-Din claimed that the airstrikes had hit a religious study centre and not a training camp.

Source: US airstrikes kill al-Qa’ida leaders in Syrian base