United States Central Command conducted a strike in Syria, resulting in the death of Usamah al-Muhajir, an ISIS leader, on Friday.
The strike, which occurred in eastern Syria, was carried out by MQ-9 drones that had been harassed by Russian aircraft shortly beforehand.
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The Syrian Civil Defense, a humanitarian response group often referred to as the “White Helmets,” said they responded to the scene where a person who was riding on a motorcycle on the Al-Bab-Bazaa road in the eastern part of Aleppo was killed by a drone. The group also said a civilian passing through the area sustained minor injuries.
CENTCOM said no civilians were killed in the strike, but they are “assessing reports of a civilian casualty.”
“We have made it clear that we remain committed to the defeat of ISIS throughout the region,” said Gen. Michael “Erik” Kurilla, commander of U.S. Central Command. “ISIS remains a threat, not only to the region but well beyond.”
CENTCOM also noted, “The strike on Friday was conducted by the same MQ-9s that had, earlier in the day, been harassed by Russian aircraft in an encounter that had lasted almost two hours.”
The drones that carried out the strike were harassed by Russian fighter jets over Syria, which capped off three days of such events, which U.S. defense officials characterized as “unsafe and unprofessional.”
“Three Russian fighter jets began harassing those drones, using things like parachute flares to drop in front of them, as well as one aircraft engaging its afterburner, clearly meant to harass and clearly unprofessional and unsafe behavior on the part of the Russians,” Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder said at Thursday’s briefing.
The department released a declassified video of the incident, which appears to show a Russian Su-35 positioning itself in front of the U.S. drone and dropping parachute-born flares into its path.
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CENTCOM is also investigating a May 3 strike in Syria due to concerns the individual targeted and killed in that strike was a civilian.
They initially said it killed a “senior al-Qaeda leader,” though they still haven’t publicly confirmed the identity of the target.
Gen. Erik Kurilla, CENTCOM commander, directed a 15-6 investigation be conducted on June 6, and the commander of Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve initiated the investigation on June 23, Lt. Col. Troy Garlock, a CENTCOM spokesman, told the Washington Examiner. CENTCOM declined to comment on why it took a month for Kurilla to initiate the investigation and two months for it to begin.
