US: Coalition Strikes Kill 3 Islamic State Drone Experts in Syria

The U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria said Thursday that three of the terror group's drone experts were killed in Syria this month, VOA reported.

U.S. Army Col. Ryan Dillon, the spokesman for the counter-Islamic State coalition, said Abu Muadh al-Tunisi was killed on September 12 and Sajid Farooq Babar was killed on September 13 by coalition airstrikes near Mayadin, Syria, in the Middle Euphrates River Valley.

Speaking to reporters via videoconference from Baghdad, Dillon said the two Islamic State fighters "were responsible for manufacturing and modifying commercially produced drones."

Separately, on September 14, two airstrikes in Syria targeted Islamic State drone developer Abu Salman near Mayadin and destroyed his research lab in Ashara, Syria.

Salman and "a terrorist associate" were killed while traveling in a vehicle from Mayadin to Ashara, according to Dillon.
"The removal of these three highly skilled ISIS officials disrupts and degrades ISIS's ability to modify and employ drone platforms as reconnaissance and direct-fire weapons on the battlefield," Dillon said, using an acronym for the terror group.