SULAIMANI (ESTA) — The U.S. military said it killed senior al Qaeda leader Abdul Hamid al-Matar in a drone strike in Syria on Friday.
“The removal of this al Qaeda senior leader will disrupt the terrorist organization’s ability to further plot and carry out global attacks threatening U.S. citizens, our partners, and innocent civilians,” U.S. Army Major John Rigsbee said in a written statement.
The strike comes two days after a U.S. outpost in southern Syrian was attacked.
American officials said the attacks appeared to include two drone strikes and a small number of rockets.
The U.S. military spokesman did not say if the U.S. drone strike was carried out in retaliation.
U.S. and Coalition troops are stationed at al-Tanf garrison to train Syrian opposition forces on patrols to counter Islamic State (ISIS) militants.
The garrison is located in a strategic area near Syria’s Tanf border crossing with Iraq and Jordan.
Tanf is the only position with a significant U.S. military presence in Syria outside the Kurdish-controlled north.
