U.S. Central Command eliminates senior ISIS leader in drone strike months after full Syria withdrawal

• United States Central Command announced a targeted drone strike on June 19 that killed senior ISIS leader Ali Husayn al-‘Ulaywi in Idlib province, Syria.
• The operation was the first major U.S. military action since completing a full withdrawal from Syria in April, with forces handing bases to the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham-led government.
• In a separate October 28 operation, U.S. airstrikes in the Syrian desert killed 35 Islamic State members, including several senior leaders, with no reported civilian casualties.
• The alliance between the U.S. and HTS remains fraught with contradictions, as HTS and ISIS share ideological ties and HTS military forces include jihadist sympathizers.
• U.S. intelligence warns of potential ISIS resurgence, as over-the-horizon capabilities now rely on local intelligence-sharing with a government that may harbor ties to extremists.

In a decisive counterterrorism operation conducted deep inside Syrian territory, the United States Central Command announced that a targeted airstrike on June 19 successfully killed a “senior ISIS leader,” marking the first major military action by Washington since completing a full withdrawal from the war-torn country in April.

CENTCOM identified the deceased target as Ali Husayn al-‘Ulaywi, describing him as a key operational figure within the Islamic State’s dwindling but persistent insurgency. According to the command, the strike was carried out via drone in the countryside of Syria’s northwest Idlib province, a region currently under the de facto control of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham-led government.

Local reports from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights corroborated the event, noting that a man riding a motorcycle was obliterated by a precision drone strike, with multiple explosions heard in the area shortly after the attack. At the time of those reports, the victim’s identity remained unconfirmed by local sources.

The timing of the operation is particularly significant, coming just over two months after the United States completed its full military withdrawal from Syria in April. That departure saw American forces hand over their remaining military bases directly to the Syrian government, which is now led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a former al-Qaeda offshoot that Washington and its regional allies helped install in Damascus following the collapse of the Assad regime in December 2024.

The alliance remains fraught with contradictions

This complex geopolitical backdrop raises critical questions about the coalition’s long-term strategy against the Islamic State. Last year, the HTS-led Syrian government formally joined the U.S.-led anti-ISIS coalition. However, the alliance remains fraught with contradictions. While ISIS has been claiming responsibility for attacks against Syrian government troops, analysts note that HTS and ISIS share a similar ideological lineage and there has historically been significant crossover between their respective memberships.

When President Donald Trump returned to the Oval Office in January 2025, the United States still maintained approximately 2,000 troops stationed across Syria. The administration immediately initiated a drawdown, a process that gained considerable momentum following the devastating December 2025 attack in Palmyra, Syria.

That assault killed two U.S. National Guard soldiers and an American civilian interpreter. While President Trump publicly blamed the Palmyra massacre on ISIS, multiple U.S. officials have since acknowledged to The Wall Street Journal that the gunman was actually a member of Syria’s security forces.

Those same officials conceded that the new Syrian military is riddled with jihadist sympathizers, including soldiers with ties to al-Qaeda and ISIS and others who have been involved in alleged war crimes against the Kurds and Druze.

ISIS resurgence remains an open and dangerous question

The June 19 strike comes amid broader concerns about ISIS’ resurgent capabilities. CENTCOM has repeatedly emphasized the group’s desire to free its over 8,000 detained operatives currently held in Syrian facilities.

As noted by BrightU.AI‘s Enoch, in a separate but related operation on October 28, U.S. forces conducted a series of airstrikes in the Syrian desert that killed 35 Islamic State members, specifically targeting multiple senior leaders within the organization. At that time, CENTCOM reported no indications of civilian casualties resulting from the strikes.

Despite the successful elimination of Ali Husayn al-‘Ulaywi, the U.S. intelligence community remains wary. The HTS government’s control over the region is tenuous and the loyalty of its military forces remains in question.

With American boots now off the ground in Syria, Washington’s ability to conduct these precision strikes relies entirely on over-the-horizon capabilities and local intelligence-sharing with a government that may harbor ties to the very extremists it is supposed to be fighting. As one anonymous defense official put it, “We can kill their leaders, but we cannot kill the ideology and the ideology now has friends in the palace.”

For now, the drone that ended Ali Husayn al-‘Ulaywi’s life serves as a stark reminder that even in withdrawal, the United States intends to keep its finger on the trigger. Whether that is enough to prevent a full-scale ISIS resurgence remains an open and dangerous question.

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Sources include:

News.Antiwar.com

Brighteon.com

BrightU.ai