US military forces killed an al-Qaeda affiliate leader linked to an Islamic State attack on Americans in Syria last month, US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement on Saturday.
Bilal Hasan al-Jasim had "direct ties" to an ISIS gunman who killed and injured US and Syrian personnel on December 13 in Palmyra, Syria, CENTCOM said.
“The death of a terrorist operative linked to the deaths of three Americans demonstrates our resolve in pursuing terrorists who attack our forces,” said Admiral Brad Cooper, the head of US Central Command, in a statement.
Since the December 13 attack, US forces have been conducting strikes in Syria, with the USmilitary saying it has hit more than 100 ISIS targets.
Syrian army seizes two oil fields from Kurdish factions as US planes fly over conflict zone
US-led coalition planes flew over flashpoint towns in northern Syria where army troops and Kurdish factions were clashing on Saturday, a Syrian security source and a Turkish defense source told Reuters.
The Syrian security source said the planes had launched warning flares over the area. There was no immediate response from the US-led coalition to Reuters' questions.
This comes after Syria's army said on Saturday it had seized the oil fields of Sufyan and Thawrah in northern Syria, where Kurdish fighters have been withdrawing from dozens of towns and villages under an agreement meant to avoid a bloody showdown.
Kurdish forces still control some of Syria's largest oil fields in the Deir el-Zor province, further east. Syria's government says those fields must be managed by central authorities.
Al-Sharaa issues decree granting Kurdish Syrians full Syrian nationality, legal protections
The situation with the Kurds in Syria is still tense, with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa issuing a decree on Friday that granted Kurdish Syrians full Syrian citizenship and criminalizing discrimination against Kurds on Friday, according to the Syrian state-owned news outlet SANA.
The decree, which includes eight articles, established that “Syrian Kurdish citizens are an essential and integral part of the Syrian people,” declaring that Kurdish “cultural and linguistic identity is an inseparable part of the diverse and unified Syrian national identity.”
“Any discrimination or exclusion based on ethnicity or language is legally prohibited,” the decree outlined, adding that “anyone who incites national strife shall be punished in accordance with applicable laws.”