The US military said Friday that its forces launched a strike in Syria that killed Abu-Abd al-Rahman al-Makki, who was described as a “senior leader” of Hurras al-Din, an al-Qaeda offshoot that operates in northwestern Syria.
“Hurras al-Din is an al-Qaeda-associated force based in Syria that shares al-Qaeda’s global aspirations to conduct attacks against US and Western interests,” US Central Command said in a press release.
CENTCOM did not offer any details on the strike. According to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the strike targeted al-Makki while he was on a motorcycle in the countryside of Syria’s northwestern Idlib province.
SOHR described al-Makki as a Saudi national who was a “former commander in a jihadist organization and served as a religious official for various jihadist organizations.”
Idlib is mainly controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), another al-Qaeda offshoot that is considered the most powerful of the remaining anti-Assad militant groups in Syria. HTS’s leader, Abu Mohammad al-Julani, previously led the al-Nusra Front, which was al-Qaeda’s main force in Syria.
In an effort to gain international support, al-Julani and HTS have claimed they’re no longer affiliated with al-Qaeda. HTS has fought against Hurras al-Din, which includes fighters who were previously members of HTS and predecessor al-Qaeda-affiliated militant groups. HTS is tacitly backed by Turkey and has not been targeted by the US in recent years. HTS is included in the US State Department’s list of “Foreign Terrorist Organizations.”