US military sources announced on Tuesday that an airstrike in Syria killed a key ISIS terrorist commander over the weekend.
According to a statement released on Tuesday, the United States Central Command, or CENTCOM, carried out the attack that killed Usamah Jamal Muhammad Ibrahim al-Janabi, a "senior ISIS official and facilitator."
ISIS's ability to "resource and conduct terror attacks" will be hampered by his death, it claimed. The airstrike caused no civilian casualties, according to the command force.
“CENTCOM, alongside allies and partners in the region, will continue to execute operations to degrade ISIS operational capabilities and ensure its enduring defeat,” the statement concluded.
Since the civil conflict in Syria began in the early 2010s, the United States has repeatedly targeted leaders of the terrorist organization, which has recently resurfaced in other regions of the world.
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the group's most renowned leader and founder, committed suicide during an October 2019 raid by US special forces in northeastern Idlib Province, Syria. Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi was designated the group's second head, but he committed suicide during a February 2022 raid by US forces.
The U.S. African Command, or AFRICOM, said that an attack in Somalia targeted ISIS militants and killed at least three "with no civilian casualties."
It comes as various current and former US officials have increased their warnings about the group's revival, particularly its Afghanistan-based spinoff ISIS-K. The organization took credit for a terrorist strike that killed at least 140 people in Moscow, Russia, earlier this year.
On Sunday, House Intelligence Chairman Mike Turner (R-Ohio) warned that the United States is facing the "highest level" of a potential terrorist assault, implying that the situation at the US-Mexico border allows ISIS-aligned terrorists to enter the nation. He was responding to claims that numerous illegal immigrants were captured this month with connections to the terrorist outfit ISIS-K, also known as ISIS Khorosan.
“What’s important about these reports and what we’re seeing, especially in conjunction with [FBI] Director [Christopher] Wray’s public statements, that we are at the highest level of a possible terrorist threat, that the administration’s policies have absolutely directly related to threats to Americans,” Mr. Turner told CBS News.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) wrote to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) last week, demanding a confidential briefing on ISIS threats for all senators, according to Fox News.
In recent months, FBI Director Christopher Wray stated that he has become increasingly concerned about terrorism in the United States following the Hamas terrorist incident in Israel on October 7 and the Russia attack.
“Looking back over my career in law enforcement, I’d be hard-pressed to think of a time when so many different threats to our public safety and national security were so elevated all at once, but that is the case as I sit here today,” the FBI director said in a Senate hearing earlier in June.
Mr. Wray has also recently expressed worry about potential people smuggling activities along the U.S.-Mexico border, stating that Mexico should give greater help. U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland similarly stated in a June House hearing that, in terms of potential terrorist strikes, "the threat level has gone up enormously."
And last week, German officials said that the country might face a Moscow-style catastrophe in the future months, namely when Germany hosts Euro 2024 soccer tournaments.
“Europe, and with it Germany, are in the crosshairs of jihadist organizations, in particular ISIS and ISIS-K,” German interior minister Nancy Faeser told the Financial Times.
