A U.S. airstrike killed senior Islamic State leader Abu Jandal al-Kuwaiti Monday, a terrorist involved in ISIS’s drive on the historic city of Palmyra.
Jandal’s nom de guerre indicates he is from the gulf Arab nation of Kuwait, and was a known member of ISIS’s war committee, according to the Pentagon. The Pentagon’s announcement also indicated Jandal was “involved in the use of suicide vehicles, IEDs and chemical weapons against the SDF.”
The SDF are the Syrian Democratic Forces, U.S.-backed Syrian rebels currently engaged in operations to retake the city of Raqqa.
Raqqa is ISIS’s capital and the current target of the U.S. anti-ISIS campaign. ISIS has been known to use crude chemical weapons, including mustard gas, in artillery shells against SDF positions.
During ISIS’s occupation of the city of Palmyra, it made international headlines by its repeated destruction of ancient ruins. ISIS’s interpretation of Islam deems this type of art as heretical and un-Islamic. Russia and the Syrian regime drove ISIS out of the city, but the terrorist group was able to recapture the town Dec 12. Jandal appears to have been a part of that initiative.
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