Airstrikes Have killed 10 ISIS Leaders, U.S. says
The U.S.-led coalition in Syria has killed 10 leaders of the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) over the past month, including extremists linked to the deadly attacks in Paris last month and others involved in plotting attacks against the West, the Pentagon said Tuesday according to the Washington Post.
Charaffe al Mouadan was killed in an airstrike in Syria on December 24, Col. Steve Warren, spokesman for the coalition armed forces, told reporters in Iraq. Although he declined to specify where the attack took place, he described it as part of a surge in air raids carried out since December 7.
“My point is this: We will continue to hunt ISIL leaders who are working to recruit, plan and inspire attacks against the United States of America and our allies,” Warren said, using a different acronym for the Islamic State extremist group.
ISIS has claimed responsibility to the November 13 attacks in Paris that took the lives of 130 people. The suspected leader of the group of attackers, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, was killed five days later in a police raid in the suburbs of Paris.
Russian Airstrikes Have Killed More Than 2,300: Rights Group
Since Russia militarily intervened in Syria in late September, its airstrikes have killed more than 2,300 people, a third of them civilians, AFP reports.
Among the 2,372 people killed by Moscow’s airstrikes in Syria so far, according the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, are 792 civilians, 180 of which were children.
Russian strikes killed some 924 opposition fighters, ranging from groups supported by the U.S. to Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaida’s branch in Syria.
Russian raids also killed 655 ISIS extremists, which the Kremlin says it is targeting along with “other terrorist groups.”
A report published last week by Amnesty International claimed Russian raids, which have killed hundreds of civilians and many of them in targeted strikes, could constitute war crimes.
A U.S. State Department spokesman echoed the accusations of both groups Tuesday, saying Moscow’s strikes have “killed hundreds of civilians, including first responders, [and] hit medical facilities, schools and markets.”
Killing of Syria Rebel Chief Detrimental to Peace Process, Saudi Says
The killing of Syrian rebel leader Zahran Alloush in an airstrike last week detracts from the peace process, Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said Tuesday according to AFP.
“Attempts to assassinate leaderships fighting Daesh do not serve the peace process and (efforts) to achieve a political solution in Syria,” Jubeir said, using a popular Arabic term for ISIS.
The Syrian government had laid claim to Friday’s strike that killed Alloush, chief of the Saudi-backed Jaish al-Islam rebel group, the most prominent faction in Damascus. Alloush’s group has battled against both Syrian government forces and ISIS extremists in Eastern Ghouta, its base in eastern Damascus.
Analysts have cautioned that Alloush’s killing could be detrimental to the ongoing peace process, in which Jaish al-Islam agreed to take part in following a conference of opposition forces earlier this month in Riyadh.
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Top image: A Russian Su-25 ground attack jet parked at the Hemeimeem air base in Syria, with Su-24 bombers seen in the background. Russia has been carrying out an air campaign in Syria since September 30. (Vadim Savitsky/Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP)