Abu al-Umarayn, a senior figure in the Islamic State terrorist organization, was killed in international coalition strikes in Syria on Sunday (December 2nd). He was involved in the execution of several Western hostages.
The US-led international military coalition announced Monday that it had killed a high-ranking jihadist implicated in the execution four years ago of an American aid worker and other Western detainees in Syria.
His death confirmed
Abu al-Oumarayn, targeted on Sunday by coalition raids against jihadists in the Badiya (desert), was accused of participating in the November 1995 decapitation of former US soldier Peter Kassig kidnapped the year before in Syria.
"He was killed and more information will be available after a full assessment , " said Sean Ryan, spokesman for the anti-jihadist coalition. Abu al-Umarayn "gave indications of an imminent threat to the coalition forces [...] and participated in the assassination of [...] Peter Kassig," he added.
According to Mr. Ryan, the jihadist was also involved in the execution of several other hostages. At the time of execution, ISIS had broadcast a video showing Mr. Kassig's severed head, but did not publish filmed sequence of decapitation, unlike other hostages.
Missile Strikes
On Sunday, the official Syrian news agency Sana accused the international anti-IS coalition of shooting at positions of the Damascus army in isolated parts of the east. According to Sana, "US Coalition forces fired several missiles at about 8 pm (6 pm GMT) this evening (Sunday) against some of our forces' positions in al-Ghurab mountain, south of al-Sukhna." , causing only "material damage" .
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH), coalition forces positioned in the Al-Tanaf region fired "more than 14 missiles" against a convoy of regime forces at the time of its passage in the badiya (desert), in the extreme east of the province of Homs. "The group was lost in the middle of the desert, 35 km from the Al-Tanaf base" , where there are American and British troops, said the director of the OSDH, Rami Abdel Rahman. The United States generally uses this base to conduct strikes against IS.
The spokesman for the coalition, however, denied any attack against the Syrian army. "False [...]. Coalition forces conducted precision strikes against ISIS, " he said.
Hostages executed
The American humanitarian Peter Kassig had founded in 2012 an organization that trained about 150 civilians in medical aid to Syrian populations. His NGO had provided food, cooking utensils, clothes and medicine to the most needy. He had adopted the name of Abdul Rahman, after his conversion to Islam. His execution was part of a gruesome series of beheadings of Western hostages that the IS had filmed to spread terror as he attempted to expand into the region.
In the days leading up to Mr Kassig's beheading, at least four other Western hostages had been executed by IS: Alan Henning and David Haines, both British aid workers, as well as American journalists Steven Sotloff and James Foley.
Another hostage was the British journalist John Cantlie, whose fate remains uncertain more than six years after his abduction. He appeared in several propaganda videos. Suspected of leading the cell responsible for these killings, Mohammed Emwazi, a British jihadist nicknamed "Jihadi John" , was reportedly killed in November 2015 by raiding Raqa.
A series of military setbacks for Daesh
After self-proclaiming in 2014 a "caliphate" straddling Syria and Iraq, and covering a territory larger than Britain, the IS suffered a series of military setbacks.
The group still retains some pockets and dormant cells in the badiya (desert), especially in eastern Syria, where the coalition continues the fight with the ground support of a Kurdish-Arab alliance. The Syrian regime, supported by Russia, also continues its fight against the last pockets of IS, which it has recently dislodged from southern Syria. But, according to analysts, these ultimate battles, especially in the desert, may be difficult to win.