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DAMASCUS, SYRIA (6:10 P.M.) – The US-led coalition continues to strike ISIS-held areas across Syria and Iraq, not only looking to propel its allies on the ground but also aiming at systematically eliminating the Islamic State leadership.

On July 24, a US airstrike killed the jihadist war chief Abd Al-Ghafur near the border city of Al-Bukamal in southern Deir Ezzor. His companion, nicknamed Abu Hammam, and three other ISIS members were also neutralized on July 16 in a nearby area, an official statement by the coalition claimed.

The statement suggested that Abd Al-Ghafur and Abu Hammam were responsible for managing and directing terror abroad, encouraging ISIS sympathisers to conduct attacks on European and American soil, even supplying them with explosives obtained on the black market.

On July 13, Abu Futtum – a well known bomb specialist and explosive manufacturer for the Islamic State – was taken out by an airstrike near Mayadin city, anchored on the Euphrates River. Five other high-ranking ISIS fighters, including Razim Kastrati and Orhan Ramadani, were killed three days later in the same region.

Additionally, foreign fighters were targeted by seemingly pinpoint US airstrikes; Lavdrim Muhaxheri was killed by a coalition airstrike on June 7 in the same area. Muhaxheri was an ethnic Albanian from Kosovo, and a self-proclaimed leader of ISIS foreign fighters from Kosovo. Four of his followers, one of whom was identified as Jetmir Ismaili, were killed in a separate air raid a couple weeks later.

In the same time, dozens of civilians are killed by US airstrikes, mostly in Raqqa city, on a daily basis with collateral damage surging since Donald Trump took office earlier this year.