Syria says senior ISIS leader killed, arrests operative near Damascus

Ahmed Al-Sharaa. Photographer: Aref Tammawi/AFP/Getty Images

Syrian authorities on Thursday said forces killed a senior leader in the Islamic State group and arrested another operative in fresh operations near capital Damascus in co-ordination with the U.S.-led coalition.

Syrian security and intelligence forces, working in co-ordination with the international coalition, conducted what the interior ministry described as a “precise security operation” in the Damascus countryside.

“The operation resulted in neutralizing the terrorist Mohammad Shahada, known as ‘Abu Omar Shaddad’, who is considered one of the prominent ISIS leaders in Syria,” it added.

“This operation comes as confirmation of the effectiveness of joint co-ordination between the national security agencies and international partners.”

Later Thursday, the interior ministry said security forces “in joint co-ordination with international coalition forces” arrested “the leader of a terrorist cell affiliated with the Daesh (ISIS) organization” elsewhere near Damascus, seizing weapons and ammunition.

Late Wednesday, authorities said they captured Taha al-Zoubi, also known as Abu Omar Tabiya, an ISIS leader in the Damascus region, along with several of his men, also in a joint operation with the U.S.-led coalition.

The interior ministry also said on Thursday that security forces had arrested three members of an ISIS-affiliated cell in Aleppo province.

A Dec. 13 attack killed two U.S. soldiers and an American civilian. Washington blamed the attack on a lone ISIS gunman in Syria’s Palmyra.

In retaliation, U.S. forces conducted strikes targeting scores of ISIS targets in Syria.

The strikes killed five members of the jihadist group, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

In November, during a visit by interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa to Washington, Syria officially joined the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS.

Sharaa is an Islamist ruler and a former jihadist whose group fought ISIS at the height of his country’s civil war.