‘Blast from the past’: US kills al-Qaida-linked terrorist

The U.S. has killed a terrorist with links to infamous terror group al-Qaeda

U.S. Central Command announced the killing of Mohammed Abd al-Wahhab al-Ahmad. SENCOM said he was killed by a strike in Syria

He was not a direct member of al-Qaeda, but rather Ansar al-Islam

That's a group with a documented history of helping al-Qaeda plan terror attacks around the world

They were formed in an area in Iraqi Kurdistan, a remote mountainous region

I've actually done research on the ground there in their zone. It was way up in the mountains, right on the Iranian border

And what makes this group Ansar al-Islam, which is, as you mentioned, an offshoot of al-Qaeda

what makes them unique is that they're not Arabs like most of these terrorist groups in the Middle East

They're ethnic Kurds. Williams said they fled the region when the US invaded Iraq in 2003

He said both Al Qaeda and Ansar al-Islam are diminished organizations at this point

And Al Qaeda has been decimated So this is a blast from the past no pun intended And I heartened by this This shows that we still have a counterterrorism presence in this very strategic zone in Syria

even though just this April, Trump decided yet again to yank the troops out of Syria

I think we've kept a small footprint there. Williams said while it's encouraging to see this, the real threat remains ISIS

especially in Syria. Syria is a historic springboard for ISIS. ISIS stands for the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq

And, you know, we have had a president, Donald Trump, who's gotten tired of having troop deployments

for some reason in Syria, but not Iraq. And he's been trying to yank them out of that country

ever since 2018. And this is not good for American security. An ISIS-pledged lone wolf killed 15 people in a terror attack in January in New Orleans

For Straight Arrow News, I'm Lauren Keenan. If you want more on this story, download the Straight Arrow News app or visit san.com