U.S.-backed fighters in Syria have captured a senior Daesh (ISIS) leader who served as an assistant to the group's self-declared "caliph" Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, they said Friday.
The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish-led militia alliance that holds the quarter of Syria east of the Euphrates, detained Osama al-Awaid last week, it said in a statement.
SDF fighters have been attempting to take Daesh's last Syrian pocket of territory on the banks of the Euphrates near Iraq for weeks, in an offensive backed by U.S.-led airstrikes.
But the radical group has showed stubborn and has advanced in the SDF areas, killing and wounding dozens.
At least 60 U.S.-backed fighters were killed and Daesh took 30 more captive in Deir Ezzor, Amaq news agency said.
They captured Awaid in a special operation in a village in eastern Syria, the statement said, adding that he had been a senior security official for Daesh in the country.
More than a year after Daesh's physical "caliphate" collapsed in both Syria and Iraq under military attack, Baghdadi's whereabouts remains a mystery.
However, despite its loss of territory, the group has been able to launch guerrilla attacks in areas controlled by both the Syrian and Iraqi governments.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said air strikes by the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State in eastern Syria this week killed dozens of people in the jihadist group's last major foothold.
The coalition could not immediately be reached for comment on the report. Syrian state media also reported dozens of deaths this week.
The Observatory said strikes beginning overnight on Wednesday in and around al-Shafa in the Deir Ezzor countryside had targeted a hospital, prison and houses used by jihadists in their pocket on the eastern bank of the Euphrates river near the Iraqi border.
The Observatory said around 40 prisoners, civilians and fighters had been killed in strikes with more wounded. The toll rose as bodies were pulled from the rubble.
Syrian state-run news agency SANA, citing local sources, said new air strikes on Friday on al-Shaéfah killed around 30, bringing the total killed this week in strikes on the Islamic State pocket to around 45.
The Syrian regime has written to the United Nations a number of times protesting casualties caused by air strikes by the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State.
The U.S.-led coalition, now in a push to defeat the final remnants of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, has previously said it investigates reports of civilian casualties and does all it can to avoid them.
(Also in eastern Syria, the powerful Kurdish YPG militia mourned 20 Arab fighters, mostly tribesmen, who were killed by Daesh (ISIS) this week.
The slain fighters were operating in the al-Arbaeen Corps in Ras al-Ayn region.
In a savage propaganda video, Daesh has executed four SDF fighters from the Arab tribes.
Daesh warned Arab tribesmen in eastern Syria of joining the ranks of the SDF and Kurdish militias.
Daesh has resorted to guerrilla tactics since it abandoned its goal of holding territory and creating a self-declared caliphate straddling Iraq and Syria.
Zaman Al Wasl, Reuters
Zaman Al Wasl
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