The terrorist group recently admitted to taking orders from ’the general command of Al-Qaeda.’
The U.S. military said it has taken out the top military leader of an al-Qaeda affiliate terrorist group in Syria.
U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) revealed that on Feb. 23, its forces—as part of the International Coalition Against ISIS—conducted a “precision airstrike” targeting and killing the senior military commander of the terrorist group Hurras al-Din.
The extremist Islamist terror group, which is affiliated with al-Qaeda, is based in the mountains of northwest Syria where the strike found its target, Muhammed Yusuf Ziya Talay, in a car driving through the northern Idlib countryside.
CENTCOM released 12 seconds of
footage of the strike on social media platform X, which showed the target’s vehicle being hit in the operation.
“As we have said in the past, we will continue to relentlessly pursue these terrorists in order to defend our homeland, and U.S., allied, and partner personnel in the region,” CENTCOM Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla said in a statement.
The strike occurred just two days after another successful targeted strike by CENTCOM that killed Wasim Tahsin Bayraqdar, a senior leadership figure in the terror group.
According to a counter terrorism
guide maintained by the director of national intelligence, Hurras al-Din adheres to Al-Qaeda’s Salafi-jihadist ideology, “which advocates attacks against the West and Israel to expel foreign influence from Muslim lands, and it seeks to set the conditions necessary to form a new caliphate across the Levant and the broader Middle East.” It has an estimated 2,000-plus fighters, including foreign extremists.
Hurras al-Din (meaning “Guardians of the Religion Organization”) and its amir, Faruq al-Suri, who is also known as Samir Hijazi, are designated global terrorists by the U.S. State Department. The amir has a $5 million
bounty on his head, as does his
second in command Sami al-Uraydi.
The group’s leader was killed in a U.S. targeted attack in June 2020.
The group formed in 2018 as a result of
infighting in the former Syrian al-Qaeda affiliate the Nusrah Front. Hurras al-Din, which wanted to remain loyal to al-Qaeda, split from Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which broke away from al-Qaeda to merge with other groups opposing Syria’s Assad regime.
On Dec. 8, 2024, HTS toppled the Assad regime when its forces announced they had captured Damascus. HTS then asked all armed groups in Syria to
disband.
Hurras al-Din released a statement in response on Jan. 28, announcing its dissolution while urging Sunni Muslims in Syria to “adhere to their principles, implement Sharia law, not lay down their weapons, and continue on the path of jihad against injustice and tyranny.”
It noted that the decision was made by “the general command of Al-Qaeda”—the first time it has publicly admitted links to al-Qaeda.
The war monitor Syrian Observatory for Human Rights
said that the decision to dissolve was made “so as not to enter into armed conflict with HTS.”
