Pentagon Says Syrian Strikes Kill al Qaeda Fighters, Including Longtime Leader

(Wall Street Journal)-American military airstrikes last week killed nearly a dozen al Qaeda militants in Syria, including a top-ranked operative, the Pentagon announced Wednesday.

One strike Feb. 3 killed 10 al Qaeda militants gathered near Idlib, Syria, and a second on Feb. 4 killed Abu Hani al-Masri, a militant leader who the Pentagon said has been active in setting up al Qaeda networks and training since the group’s earliest days in the 1980s in Afghanistan.

“He was also one of the founders of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the first Sunni group to use suicide bombers in their terror attacks,” the Pentagon said in a statement, adding that Mr. Masri’s group plotted unsuccessfully to blow up the American embassy in Albania in 1998.

The Pentagon’s disclosure of the strikes came days after a raid by U.S. special operations forces on an al Qaeda camp in Yemen to collect intelligence led to a firefight that killed a Navy SEAL and left Yemeni noncombatants dead. The death of Chief Petty Officer William “Ryan” Owens, 36 years old, was the first publicly announced combat death of an American service member under President Donald Trump.

The Pentagon said it would continue to engage in such strikes to disrupt terrorism locally and to prevent al Qaeda from carrying out attacks on the West.