There were no civilian casualties in the airstrike on Thursday, according to the US military. No American soldiers were injured. The airstrike followed several hours after another rare US helicopter strike on a Syrian village that also killed an IS militant.
In February, the new IS leader, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, was also eliminated in northern Syria. The White House spoke of a “milestone”. The terrorist leader, who succeeded Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi after his death in 2019, blew himself up during a US operation in northern Syria. That happened after he used his family members as a ‘protective shield’. US President Joe Biden called the suicide of the dead ISIS leader “a cowardly act”.
