Beirut: The Syrian army said on Wednesday it had killed Daesh’s military commander in Syria during operations in the north of the country.If confirmed, this would represent a major blow against Daesh ahead of an attack which the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) - an alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters - are expected to launch against the terrorists in their stronghold of Raqqa city.
A Syrian military source told Reuters the Daesh commander, Abu Musab Al Masri, had been the group’s “minister of war” for Syria.He was named among 13 senior Daesh figures killed in Syrian army operations east of Aleppo, including men identified as Saudi and Iraqi nationals, according to the military source cited by state media.
Al Masri was killed in the operations that got underway on May 10. The military source did not say where he was killed.
Baghdad-based Daesh expert Hisham Al Hashimi said the death of Masri, if confirmed, would be a “significant blow to the group ahead of the battle of Raqqa”. He said al-Masri was the fourth most senior figure in the organisation.
A previous Daesh minister of war, Abu Omar Al Shishani, was killed last year. The Pentagon said Al Shishani was likely to have been killed in a US air strike in Syria. The militant group confirmed his death in July but said he had died fighting in the Iraqi city of Shirqat south of Mosul.
Daesh faces separate campaigns in northern Syria by the Russian-backed Syrian army, the US-backed SDF, and Turkey-backed rebels fighting under the Free Syrian Army banner.
The six-year-long Syrian war has allowed Daesh to seize swathes of Syria and to carve out a so-called “caliphate” in both Syria and neighbouring Iraq.
The SDF, which includes the Kurdish YPG militia, has been waging a multi-phased operation to encircle Raqqa with the aim of capturing it from Daesh.
