US drone strike kills Islamic State Syria chief: Pentagon

A man who US officials called the leader of the Islamic State militant group in Syria was killed Tuesday in a drone strike, the Pentagon said.

Maher al-Agal was killed while riding a motorcycle near Jindires in northern Syria, and one of his top aides was seriously injured, Pentagon Central Command spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Dave Eastburn said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed Agal was killed in a drone strike. 

The volunteer Syrian Civil Defence Force, known as the "White Helmets," said one person was killed and another injured in a strike that targeted a motorcycle outside Aleppo, but did not identify the victims.

There was little information available about Agal, whom the Observatory called the Islamic State governor for the Levant.

The US Central Command called him "one of the top five" leaders of Islamic State overall.

"In addition to being a senior leader within the group, Al-Agal was responsible for aggressively pursuing the development of IS networks outside of Iraq and Syria," it said in a statement.

According to a spokesman for the US-allied Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces, both the men who were targeted had links to Ahrar al-Sharqiya, an armed group operating in northern Syria.

Ahrar al-Sharqiya was responsible for the 2019 assassination of prominent Kurdish female politician Hevrin Khalaf, which sparked international condemnation.

The US Treasury placed the group on its sanctions blacklist in July 2021.