BAGHDAD: Iraqi security forces have killed a senior member of the Daesh group in Syria who was responsible for carrying out attacks against Iraqi government forces, the Iraqi National Security Service said on Tuesday.
Abu Zainab, an Iraqi national, was killed in the Syrian city of Raqqa “during the past days” in cooperation with US-led coalition forces, it said in a statement.
A spokesperson for the US-led anti-Daesh coalition did not respond to a request for comment.
The US-led coalition is working with Iraqi security forces and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in Syria against remnants of the Daesh group.
In Iraq, the group was defeated in 2017 but Daesh militants still wage regular attacks on police, the army and Iraqi state paramilitary units.
Iraqi forces kill senior Daesh leader in a raid in Syria
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Iraqi forces kill senior Daesh leader in a raid in Syria
- Abu Zainab, an Iraqi national, was killed in the Syrian city of Raqqa
Syria Kurds chief says ‘all efforts’ being made to salvage deal with Damascus
- Abdi said the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Kurds’ de facto army, remained committed to the deal
- The two sides were working toward “mutual understanding” on military integration and counter-terrorism
DAMASCUS: Syrian Kurdish leader Mazloum Abdi said Thursday that “all efforts” were being made to prevent the collapse of talks on an agreement with Damascus to integrate his forces into the central government.
The remarks came days after Aleppo saw deadly clashes between the two sides before their respective leaders ordered a ceasefire.
In March, Abdi signed a deal with Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa to merge the Kurds’ semi-autonomous administration into the government by year’s end, but differences have held up its implementation.
Abdi said the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Kurds’ de facto army, remained committed to the deal, adding in a statement that the two sides were working toward “mutual understanding” on military integration and counter-terrorism, and pledging further meetings with Damascus.
Downplaying the year-end deadline, he said the deal “did not specify a time limit for its ending or for the return to military solutions.”
He added that “all efforts are being made to prevent the collapse of this process” and that he considered failure unlikely.
Abdi also repeated the SDF’s demand for decentralization, which has been rejected by Syria’s Islamist authorities, who took power after ousting longtime ruler Bashar Assad last year.
Turkiye, an important ally of Syria’s new leaders, sees the presence of Kurdish forces on its border as a security threat.
In Damascus this week, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan stressed the importance of the Kurds’ integration, having warned the week before that patience with the SDF “is running out.”
The SDF control large swathes of the country’s oil-rich north and northeast, and with the support of a US-led international coalition, were integral to the territorial defeat of the Daesh group in Syria in 2019.
Syria last month joined the anti-IS coalition and has announced operations against the jihadist group in recent days.
