US Reports Drone Strike in Syria’s Idlib Killed ‘Senior al-Qaeda Leader’
Last weekend, it was reported that the US attacked and killed Wasim Tahsin Bayraqdar, a “senior leadership facilitator” for Hurras al-Din, in an attack in Syria’s Idlib Governorate. Around that time, it was also being reported another US drone strike had happened in Idlib, and another person was killed.
CENTCOM has now identified the person killed in the second strike that weekend as Muhammed Yusuf Ziya Talay, who has also been labeled a “senior military leader of al-Qaeda affiliate Hurras al-Din.” The announcement includes a brief video of the drone hitting his car.
Little concrete information can actually be proven about Talay, as like so many “al-Qaeda leaders” slain in US drone strikes he was never publicly identified as such until he got killed. There are, however, reports that Talay was known, with the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) referring to him as Abo Jaffar al-Turkey and social media accounts referring to him separately as Jafar at-Turki or similar variations like Cetar et-Türki.
