US Central Command announced the killing of Usamah Jamal Ibrahim al-Janabi, a “senior ISIS official and facilitator.” No civilians were harmed in the strike that killed al-Janabi. This marks the first announced death of a major ISIS leader in Syria in months. While CENTCOM did not specify the location or which actor, if anybody, provided assistance in the operation, the Syrian Democratic Forces, in a statement congratulation CENTCOM on the successful operation, clarified that al-Janabi was located in Turkish-occupied Afrin, which has become a hub for extremist groups, including ISIS and Hayat Tahir al-Sham, to operate freely in. 

The previous day, the Syrian Interim Government accused the SDF of carrying out an airstrike that killed a civilian in Afrin. The SDF responded after CENTCOM’s announcement that the SIG, intentionally or incidentally, both wrongly put responsibility for CENTCOM’s strike on the SDF, and wrongly claimed that the victim was a civilian.