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US troops in Syria in autumn 2019
Photo: Delil Souleiman/ AFP
Four US soldiers were injured and a jihadist leader was killed in an operation against the terrorist militia "Islamic State" (IS) in Syria.
The US soldiers and an army dog were injured by a targeted explosion during the night-time helicopter operation in northeastern Syria, the US military command announced to Centcom on Friday.
They are being treated at a US hospital in Iraq.
The target of the operation was the senior IS leader Hamsa al-Homsi.
He was killed, according to the US Army.
During the operation, the US forces worked with the Kurdish-led military alliance Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
In 2014, in the middle of the civil war, IS took control of large parts of Syria and Iraq, but gradually lost these areas again.
After a US-led coalition drove IS from its last bastions in Syria in March 2019, most remaining IS fighters retreated to the Syrian desert.
From there they keep attacking Kurdish fighters and soldiers from the Syrian government army.
The US forces, in turn, target the jihadists and their leaders during operations.
Dead and injured by machine gun attack
According to activists, IS fighters killed at least eleven people in central Syria just a few days ago.
Most of the fatalities were therefore civilians.
According to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a network of local informants, a group of IS militants attacked around 75 people in the Palmyra region while they were collecting truffles.
"Ten civilians, including a woman, and a member of the Syrian armed forces" were killed.
The Syrian news agency Sana also reported on the attack, albeit with a lower number of victims.
Accordingly, IS fighters attacked with machine guns.
dop/AFP