A leader of the Islamic State group was killed in Syria by a US drone strike. The strike happened just hours after Russian military jets chased the same MQ-9 Reaper drones over the western part of the country.
Friday, a US defense source said that three Reapers were looking for the militant from above.
Usamah al-Muhajir was riding a motorcycle in the Aleppo area when the drones hit him and killed him, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk about the military action.
At the time of the attack, al-Muhajir was in the northwest of Syria, but he generally works in the east.
“It wasn’t clear right away how the US military knew that the person killed was al-Muhajir because no other information was given,” he said.
US Central Command said in a statement on Sunday that there are no signs that civilians were hurt or killed in the strike.
According to rumors, a civilian may have been hurt. The military was looking into this.
Friday was the third day in a row that US officials said Russian fighter jets in the area had flown close to American drones in a way that was dangerous and annoying.
What did US Air Forces Central Command Head say?
Lt Gen Alex Grynkewich, head of the US Air Forces Central Command, said in a statement that the Russian planes “flew 18 unprofessional close passes” on Friday, which forced the MQ-9s to take action to avoid dangerous situations.
The first fight happened Wednesday morning when three American MQ-9 drones were on a mission against IS and three Russian military planes “acted in a dangerous and unprofessional way,” according to the US military.
Thursday, the US military said that Russian fighter planes flew “incredibly unsafely and unprofessionally” against both French and US planes over Syria.
Col. Michael Andrews, a spokesman for Air Forces Central Command, said that the Thursday incident lasted almost an hour and that one SU-34 and one SU-35 flew close to the MQ-9 and dropped flares right into it.
US sources said that when the drones flew before, they were not carrying weapons, but on Friday, when they went after al-Muhajir, they did.
In the statement, Gen. Erik Kurilla, who is in charge of US Central Command, said, “We have made it clear that we are still committed to beating ISIS everywhere in the region.”
