Aid worker executioner is killed by US coalition
Peter Kassig standing in front of a truck filled with supplies for Syrian refugees, before he was killed by ISIS militants including Abu al-Umarayan
The US-led coalition against Islamic State said it had killed a senior jihadist involved in the executions of an American aid worker and other Western hostages.
Abu al-Umarayn was accused of assisting in the November 2014 beheading of Peter Kassig, a former US ranger who was doing volunteer humanitarian work when captured in 2013.
“He was killed and more information will be available after a full assessment,” Sean Ryan, spokesman for the US-led coalition, said.
Ryan said the jihadist had also been involved in the execution of several other prisoners.
It is the first time the coalition, which has been hunting down IS fighters in Iraq and Syria since 2014, has announced the killing of a jihadist leader linked to Kassig’s death.
Syria’s official Sana news agency earlier accused the US-led coalition of firing on Syrian army positions in remote eastern regions.
“The American coalition forces launched several missiles against some positions of our forces in the Ghorab mountains south of Sukhna,” it said.
It said the bombardment had caused only material damage.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said coalition forces fired “more than 14 missiles” at a Syrian army convoy as it was passing through the desert.
“The group was lost in the middle of the desert around 35 kilometers from the Al-Tanf base,” the observatory’s director Rami Abdel Rahman said.
The US often uses this base to launch its strikes against IS jihadists.
Coalition spokesman Sean Ryan denied any strikes targeted the Syrian army.
“False, the strikes were as the report stated and directed at IS,” he said.
