BEIRUT: A US drone strike has killed an Islamic State group leader in Syria after Russian warplanes harassed MQ-9 drones over the war-torn country, the US Central Command said Sunday. The strike on Friday resulted in the death of Osama Al-Muhajer, IS leader in eastern Syria, Centcom said in a statement. “We have made it clear that we remain committed to the defeat of ISIS throughout the region,” Centcom chief General Michael Kurilla was quoted as saying, using another acronym for the IS jihadist group. “ISIS remains a threat, not only to the region but well beyond,” he added.

According to Centcom, no civilians were killed in the operation but coalition forces are “assessing reports of a civilian injury”. Friday’s strike, Centcom said, “was conducted by the same MQ-9s (drones) that had... been harassed by Russian aircraft in an encounter that had lasted almost two hours”. US drones taking part in operations against IS in Syria were harassed on Thursday, for the second time in 24 hours, by Russian military aircraft, a US commander said at the time. Air Force Lieutenant General Alexus Grynkewich said the planes “dropped flares in front of the drones and flew dangerously close, endangering the safety of all aircraft involved”.

In another incident on Wednesday, three Russian jets dropped parachute flares in front of US drones, forcing them to take evasive action, Grynkewich has said, calling on Moscow to “cease this reckless behavior”. Russia is a key ally of the Syrian regime of President Bashar Al-Assad. With the support of Moscow as well as Iran, Assad has clawed back much of the ground lost in the early stages of the Syrian conflict that erupted in 2011 when the government brutally repressed pro-democracy protests. The last pockets of armed opposition to the regime include large swathes of the northern rebel-held Idlib province.

The United States has about 1,000 troops deployed in Syria as part of international efforts to combat IS jihadists, who were defeated in Syria in 2019 but still maintain hideouts in remote desert areas and conduct frequent attacks. Meanwhile, Syria on Saturday announced it was cancelling the BBC’s accreditation over what it called “misleading reports”, a rare move against an international media outlet in the war-torn country. “Due to the broadcaster’s failure to adhere to professional standards and its insistence on providing biased and misleading reports”, the information ministry has decided to “cancel the accreditation” of the BBC’s “correspondent and cameraman”, it said in a statement.

Accreditation of the BBC Radio correspondent in Syria was also revoked, the ministry added. A spokesperson for the British broadcaster, without directly commenting on the Syrian move, said that “BBC News Arabic provides impartial independent journalism” and speaks “to people across the political spectrum to establish the facts”. “We will continue to provide impartial news and information to our audiences across the Arabic-speaking world,” the spokesperson added in a statement. The information ministry said that since Syria’s war broke out in 2011, the BBC has “from time to time provided subjective and fake information and reports about the reality” in the country.

The conflict has killed more than 500,000 people, displaced millions and devastated much of the country’s infrastructure and industry. The BBC was warned “more than once” but “continued to broadcast its misleading reports based on statements... from terrorist entities and those hostile to Syria”, the ministry added. Revoking the accreditation of international media representatives is rare for Damascus, where the few remaining foreign media outlets have locally based correspondents. Many foreign journalists quit the country as the war spiraled, pulling in foreign powers and global jihadists. – AFP