A senior ISIS leader has been killed in an airstrike by American forces in northwest Syria, according to U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) on Wednesday.
Ali Husayn al-‘Ulaywi died in the precision airstrike on June 19.
CENTCOM, which oversees the Middle East, said the strike was part of its ongoing mission to disrupt and eliminate terrorist threats targeting Americans.
The ISIS group has launched what it describes as a new phase of operations in Syria, carrying out a series of attacks against the government of President Ahmed al-Sharaa since February.
The United Nations’ Office of Counter-Terrorism said that Sharaa and two senior cabinet ministers were the targets of five thwarted ISIS assassination plots, according to its report earlier this year.
The escalation comes after his government joined the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS. Sharaa signed Syria’s accession to the global coalition to defeat ISIS when he met with President Donald Trump during a visit to the United States last November.
In February, the terrorist group claimed responsibility for two attacks targeting Syrian army personnel in northern and eastern Syria.
Since the fall of Bashar al-Assad, ISIS has carried out six attacks targeting Syrian government forces.
In May, American forces targeted and killed the second-in-command of ISIS globally in Nigeria.
The military “flawlessly executed a meticulously planned and very complex mission to eliminate the most active terrorist in the world from the battlefield,” according to Trump.
Such designations allow for the government to take certain actions against the military group, such as freezing assets or imposing criminal penalties.