US strike kills 40: group

US FORCES attacked jihadist leaders in northwestern Syria on Saturday, the Pentagon said, in what a battlefield monitor called a missile strike that left at least 40 dead.

The US strike came as renewed Syrian regime bombardment of Idlib province killed one civilian in a first violation of a Russianbacked truce for the region that came into effect just hours before, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The US Defense Department said its own attack targeted leaders of Al-Qaeda in the north of the same province, but did not say what kind of weapon was used.

That attack targeted leaders of jihadist groups and allied factions near Idlib city, the Observatory said.

The US missile attack “targeted a meeting held by the leaders of Hurras alDeen, Ansar al-Tawhid and other allied groups inside a training camp”, said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Observatory.

It killed at least 40 jihadist leaders, the Britain

based monitor said.

The US Central Command said in a statement that the attack targeted leaders of Al-Qaeda in Syria (AQ-S) “responsible for attacks threatening US citizens, our partners and innocent civilians.

“Additionally, the removal of this facility will further degrade their ability to conduct future attacks and destabilize the region.”

An AFP correspondent saw clouds of black smoke rising over the area after blasts rocked the jihadist stronghold.

Ambulances rushed to the site of the attack, which was closed off to journalists, he said.

It was not immediately clear if the missiles were

launched from war planes or positions on the ground, the monitor said.

CENTCOM declined to say what kind of weaponry was used.

On July 1 the US said it had carried out a strike on Hurras al-Deen in northwestern Syria, in its first such operation there in two years.

Al-Qaeda-linked Hurras al-Deen was established in February 2018 and has some 1,800 fighters, including non-Syrians, according to the Observatory.

The group and its ally Ansar al-Tawhid both operate in the Idlib region and are members of a joint jihadist operation room that also includes Al-Qaeda’s former Syria affiliate, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).