{"id":414454,"date":"2026-01-18T07:00:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T07:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/414454\/"},"modified":"2026-01-18T07:00:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T07:00:17","slug":"us-strike-in-syria-kills-man-linked-to-attack-on-soldiers-officials-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/414454\/","title":{"rendered":"US strike in Syria kills man linked to attack on soldiers, officials say"},"content":{"rendered":"

US forces have carried out a strike which killed an al-Qaeda leader “who had direct ties” to an Islamic State (IS) group terrorist responsible for an ambush which killed three Americans in Syria, officials have said. <\/p>\n

The US Central Command (Centcom) said in a statement that Bilal Hasan al-Jasim was killed in the attack on Friday, which took place in northwest Syria. <\/p>\n

The statement says he was “directly connected” with the IS group gunman who killed and injured American and Syrian personnel. <\/p>\n

The BBC has not independently verified the US claims.<\/p>\n

“The death of a terrorist operative linked the death of three Americans demonstrates our resolve in pursuing terrorists who attack our forces,” said Centcom commander Adm Brad Cooper.<\/p>\n

“There is no safe place for those who conduct, plot, or inspire attacks on American citizens and our warfighters. We will find you.”<\/p>\n

The US has been carrying out large-scale strikes on IS targets in Syria, dubbed Operation Hawkeye Strike, since the deaths of the three American on 13 December 2025<\/a> in Palmyra, central Syria.<\/p>\n

So far, the US has hit more than 100 “infrastructure and weapons site targets”, using 200 precision munitions, according to Centcom.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, Centcom said it had killed or captured nearly 25 IS group members in 11 missions between 20 December and 29 December.<\/p>\n

Syria has been in a fragile state since the fall of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December 2024, which effectively ended a civil war that had ravaged the country for 13 years.<\/p>\n

Ahmed al-Sharaa, also known by his nom-de-guerre Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, has been serving as the country’s president since his rebel group ousted Assad and solidified control.<\/p>\n

IS has been weakened in Syria, but still remains active, predominantly carrying out attacks against Kurdish-led forces in the north-east in 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US forces have carried out a strike which killed an al-Qaeda leader “who had direct ties” to an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":414455,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-414454","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-united-states-of-america","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414454\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/414455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}