A US drone strike in Syria last week killed two Islamic State leaders linked to the November 13, 2015 attacks in Paris which killed 130 people as well as a third militant convicted in absentia in Belgium for a disrupted plot, the Pentagon said on Tuesday.
The US military said the strike took place on December 4 in Raqqa, the Islamic State’s defacto capital in Syria.
“They were working together to plot and facilitate attacks on Western targets at the time of the strike,” Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said.
The Pentagon named two of the militants as Salah Gourmat and Sammy Djedou and said both men were involved with facilitating the 2015 machinegun and suicide bomb attacks on the Bataclan music hall, Paris bars and restaurants, and the Stade de France soccer stadium.
The third man killed, Walid Hamman, was a suicide attack planner and French national who was convicted in absentia in Belgium for a plot disrupted in 2015, Davis informed.
The three men were killed when a drone aircraft fired on them as they were in a car together, Davis said.
Islamic State, which has controlled parts of Iraq and Syria in recent years, has lost territory this year to local forces in those countries supported by a US-led coalition of air strikes and advisers. Islamic State sympathisers around the world have carried out other shootings and bombings of civilians.
{{/usCountry}}Islamic State, which has controlled parts of Iraq and Syria in recent years, has lost territory this year to local forces in those countries supported by a US-led coalition of air strikes and advisers. Islamic State sympathisers around the world have carried out other shootings and bombings of civilians.
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