BEIRUT (AP) — A drone strike believed to be carried out by the U.S.-led coalition in northern Syria on Friday killed an Islamic State-linked man and injured a bystander, a paramedic group said and an opposition war watcher.
The Syrian Civil Defence, also known as the White Helmets, said the man was killed while riding a motorcycle. He added that a passerby was also injured.
Rami Abdurrahman, who heads the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the man targeted by the drone was a militant linked to the Islamic State group. The Observatory said the attack occurred on the road connecting the town of al-Bab to the village of Bazaa.
The US-led coalition has for years targeted militants linked to al-Qaeda and ISIS.
In May, the US military said it was investigating reports it killed a civilian in a strike earlier that month in northwestern Syria when it targeted a senior military official. Al-Qaeda.
Every day, there are at least 900 US troops in Syria, along with an undisclosed number of contractors, associating with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. They are tasked with preventing a return of IS, which swept through Iraq and Syria in 2014, taking control of large swaths of territory and sometimes targeting other militant groups.
Despite their defeat in Syria in March 2019, IS sleeper cells continue to carry out deadly attacks in the war-torn country, mainly targeting Syrian government forces, SDF members and local officials.
In another part of Syria, an accident on the road linking the central city of Homs to the historic city of Palmyra killed 16 people, including women and children, according to the state news agency SANA. He said the bodies had been transferred to hospitals in the central province of Homs.