Senior IS militant killed: Syrian army

16 civilians dead in coalition strikes, says monitor

BEIRUT, May 24, (Agencies): The Syrian army said on Wednesday it had killed Islamic State’s military commander in Syria during operations in the north of the country, where the Russian-backed government forces are seizing more territory back from the jihadist group.

If confirmed, this would represent a major blow against Islamic State (IS) ahead of an attack which the USbacked Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) — an alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters — are expected to launch against the jihadists in their stronghold of Raqqa city.

A Syrian military source told Reuters the IS commander, Abu Musab al-Masri, had been the group’s “minister of war” for Syria. Syrian state media had earlier cited a military source as saying he was the organisation’s “minister of war”, suggesting he was the overall IS military commander.

He was named among 13 senior Islamic State 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 IS expert Hisham alHashimi 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 IS minister of war, Abu Omar al-Shishani, was killed last year. The Pentagon said 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.

Islamic State faces separate campaigns in northern Syria by the Russian-backed Syrian army, the USbacked SDF, and Turkey-backed rebels fighting under the Free Syrian Army banner.

The six-year-long Syrian war has allowed IS to seize swathes of Syria and to carve out a cross-border “caliphate” in both Syria and neighbouring Iraq.

Encircle

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 Islamic State.

Meanwhile, at least 16 civilians were killed in bombing raids early Wednesday by the US-led coalition near the Islamic State group’s Syrian bastion Raqa, a monitor said. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the toll included a woman and her five children, as well as three couples.

“The coalition strikes hit Al-Baruda, a village about 15 kilometres (10 miles) west of Raqa city,” said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman.

“Most of those killed had fled eastern parts of the province of Homs,” he added.

The US-led coalition is providing air cover for a major offensive to capture Raqa city, the heart of IS territory in Syria.

As of Wednesday, the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) were only three kilometres (two miles) from Raqa at their closest point to the east.

The strikes on Al-Baruda come after the Observatory reported the highest monthly civilian death toll for the coalition since it began bombing Syria on September 23, 2014.

Between April 23 and May 23 of this year, coalition strikes killed a total of 225 civilians in Syria, the Britain-based Observatory said.

Earlier this month, the US military said that coalition air strikes in Iraq and Syria had “unintentionally” killed a total of 352 civilians since 2014.

More than 320,000 people have been killed and millions more displaced since Syria’s conflict broke out in March 2011.

The US ambassador to the United Nations is in Turkey at the ribbon-cutting for a new US-funded school, and Nikki Haley says the American people are thankful the US ally is taking in so many Syrian refugees.

The school in the southern Turkish city of Adana is serving children who’ve fled the Syrian civil war.

The middle school is funded by the US State Department, it was built by UNICEF and it’s run by the Turkish government. It will serve some of the half-million Syrian refugee children enrolled in schools in Turkey.

Using double shifts, the new school will serve about 1,400 students — age 10 to 14 — in two dozen classrooms.

Security was tight for the ribboncutting ceremony, with snipers posted on rooftops overlooking the school.

In other news, ateam from the international chemical weapons watchdog found exposure “to sarin or a sarin-like substance” in samples from an April 4 attack in northern Syria that killed over 90 people and now wants to visit the opposition-held town of Khan Sheikhoun, a senior UN official said Tuesday.