Photo: U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Brian Ferguson.
On September 22, the US-led coalition denied responsibility for the recent drone strike on the northwestern Syrian region of Greater Idlib.
The drone strike targeted a car near the town of Binnish in eastern Idlib. At least one man was killed as a result of the strike.
“The Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve did not conduct an airstrike on September 20, 2021 on a senior al-Qaeda leader in Idlib, Syria,” Col. Wayne Marotto, a spokesman for the coalition side.
Pentagon press secretary John Kirby was the first to confirm that the US were behind the drone strike. However, he didn’t reveal the identity of the target or who exactly carried out the strike.
Sources in Greater Idlib said that the target of the drone strike was either sheikh Abu al-Bar’a al-Tunisi, a leader of al-Qaeda-linked Horas al-Din, or the terrorist group’s military commander Abu Hamzah al-Yamani. Some sources even claimed that both men were killed in the strike.
This was the first US drone strike to target Syria’s Greater Idlib since President Joe Biden assumed office on January 20.
Last year, a series of drone strikes on Greater Idlib claimed the lives of several senior leaders of Horas al-Din and other al-Qaeda factions. Some of the terrorists were targeted with an advanced version of the Hellfire missile known as the AGM-114R9X “Ninja Bomb”. This version has a kinetic warhead consisting of pop-out blades meant to reduce collateral damage.
According to a report by the New York Times, the little known US Special Operations Command appears to be behind the assassination program in Greater Idlib.
The US would never act in support of the legitimate Bashar al-Assad government. The targets would likely be western trained defectors or those with specific intel on western forces and operations.
Of course, American drones only kill children.