The US military is still conducting attacks inside Syria, at a moment its close regional ally Israel is gobbling up territory in the south, and Golan region, with IDF ground forces holding territory within dozens of miles of Damascus.
“A senior Islamic State leader was killed by an airstrike last week, Central Command announced on Wednesday, as the region grapples with a fraught security landscape amid U.S. base closures in Syria and the escape of ISIS personnel from detainment,” Defense News writes based on a fresh Wednesday Pentagon statement.
Hussein Al-Alawi has been identified as the target killed in northwestern Syria in the special forces operation.
“The attack is part of our continued efforts to disrupt terrorist activities and to target those who seek to plan attacks on the United States of America and its interests both domestically and internationally,” CENTCOM stressed in its statement.
“The continued collaboration with the regional partners in the fight against the group,” added the statement.
“CENTCOM and its partners remain committed to defeating the last remnants of ISIS and to guaranteeing its demise,” stated Admiral Brad Cooper, US Central Command commander.
The over decade-long proxy war to oust Assad, which heavily involved the CIA and Gulf states, as well as Israel, has long been discussed as part of the ‘pipeline wars’ theme, and has for years been an open secret.
President Trump, who helped put new Syrian self-declared President Sharaa in power, and vouched for him when they first met in Saudi Arabia, is expected to attend the G7 summit.
But despite Damascus under Sharaa now being a willing puppet of Washington, economic relief for the war-ravaged Syrian population has remained illusory, as one Middle East outlet previously underscored:
Because Syria had been under crushing sanctions since the start of the 14-year war that began in 2011, many expected the economic situation to improve after Sharaa toppled former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s government and western nations began easing sanctions.
However, “attracting foreign investment and restoring normal banking ties have proven slower and more difficult than many officials had hoped,” Reuters noted. More than 90 percent of Syrians live below the poverty line and have suffered from major increases in the price of fuel, electricity, and food in recent months.
All the while, looming large in the background is the fact that the Syrian government is now full of Sunni extremists, who have repeatedly targeted Alawites, Druze, and Christians for being “unbelievers”.
Thousands have died at the hands of ISIS-style Syrian government-linked military members, who have sought to cleanse the country of its ancient Christian and Alawite communities.
Israeli officials have of late lumped Turkey and Syria into an ‘axis’ which threatens Israel and its interests in the region. Also, Washington has been putting pressure on Damascus to move against Hezbollah, and yet the reality remains that Syria’s defenses have been largely obliterated – ironically enough through Israeli strikes in the wake of Assad’s exit.