US drone strike kills high-ranking al-Qaeda leader in Syria

A high-ranking al-Qaeda commander has been killed in a US drone strike in Syria’s northwestern province of Idlib, says a monitoring agency.

According to the US-based SITE Intelligence Group on Monday, Abdullah Muhammad Rajab Abdulrahman, the deputy to al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, was killed during an attack on his car on Sunday.

The Egyptian national, also known by his nom de guerre Abu al-Khayr al-Masri, was a close associate to former al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and was implicated in the 1998 bomb attacks on the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya.

Images posted on social media showed his car with its roof destroyed after the attack. The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has also confirmed that a senior al-Qaeda figure was killed in the province.

The Pentagon has also confirmed carrying out a strike on the province on Sunday without referring to its target or outcome.