US airstrike in Syria kills senior operative of al-Qaeda affiliate

The US military said it killed a senior operative of Al-Qaeda's Syria branch in an air strike on northwestern Syria on Thursday.

The area was the stronghold of interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa's Hayat Tahrir al-Sham  group before it led the rebel offensive that toppled Bashar al-Assad in December.

"US Central Command forces conducted a precision air strike in northwest Syria targeting  and killing Muhammad Salah al-Zabir, a senior operative in the terrorist organisation Hurras al-Din, an Al-Qaeda afiliate," CENTCOM said in a statement.

Britain based-war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Zabir was killed  when the vehicle he was travelling in on the Sarmada-Idlib road was hit by a US drone strike. The US strike came days afer Hurras al-Din announced its dissolution in line with orders from  the interim president.

The Observatory said Hurras al-Din "announced its dissolution so as not to enter into armed conflict with HTS."

Sharaa's faction was Al-Qaeda's Syria afiliate until it broke ties with the jihadist network in 2016.

The US-based SITE Intelligence Group said Hurras al-Din was founded in February 2018. It did not publicly confirm its allegiance to Al-Qaeda until its dissolution announcement on Tuesday.

The United States designated Hurras al-Din as a "terrorist" organisation in 2019 and has offered financial rewards for information on several of its members.

It carried out successive air strikes targeting the group's leadership in northwestern Syria in  August and September last year.

Washington also still blacklists HTS as a "terrorist" group, although it has lifed some of its sanctions against Sharaa's group since it toppled Assad last year.