Maher al-Agal, one of the jihadist group’s top five leaders, died on Tuesday outside the northwestern Syrian town of Jidaris near the Turkish border, the US Central Command said. An unidentified senior IS official who was his close associate was seriously injured. The US Department of Defense said there were no civilian casualties, although this could not be immediately confirmed. Al-Agal was responsible for the “aggressive” development of IS networks outside of Iraq and Syria, the US Central Command said, adding that “extensive planning” went into the drone attack to “ensure its successful execution”. Al-Agal was previously a senior IS commander when the group controlled Raqqa in Syria, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Since then, it has moved further north to Afrin in 2020 under Turkish-backed factions. He was most recently a commander in a Turkish-backed faction called Jaysh Al-Sharqiyyah. The US Central Command said violent extremist organizations “continue to pose a threat to America and our allies”. He added: “Al Qaeda-linked groups have used the rebel-held enclave in northwest Syria as a safe haven.” The strike in al-Agal comes months after Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, the head of Islamic State, was killed during a raid on his hideout by US forces. He was blown up along with members of his family. Read more: Paris attacks 2015: Islamic State fanatic sentenced to life in prison for mass murder Islamic State leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi blew himself up and his family during a US raid in Syria Last month, a US drone strike also killed a senior leader of the Horas al-Din group, Abu Hamzah al Yemeni. At the height of its power, the Islamic State insurgent group controlled more than 40,000 square miles from Syria to Iraq, ruling over eight million people. Although its territorial state collapsed in 2019, leaders used guerrilla tactics to “effectively restructure themselves organizationally,” said the Washington-based think tank Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. US forces have also been targeting al-Qaeda-linked militants over the years.
