A new report says that American forces have taken out a terrorist leader tied to the deadly ambush of two American soldiers and a civilian interpreter in Syria.
U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) conducted the strike. CENTCOM commander Adm. Brad Cooper declared in a statement Saturday that “The death of a terrorist operative linked to the deaths of three Americans demonstrates our resolve in pursuing terrorists who attack our forces. There is no safe place for those who conduct, plot, or inspire attacks on American citizens and our warfighters. We will find you.”
The victims of the December ISIS ambush were Iowa National Guardsmen Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres Tovar (25), Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard (29), and civilian interpreter Ayad Mansoor Sakat.
CENTCOM added: “Additionally, U.S. and partner forces have captured more than 300 ISIS operatives and killed over 20 across Syria during the past year, removing terrorists who posed a direct threat to the United States and regional security.”
The current regime in charge of Syria is actually an al-Qaeda offshoot, the terrorist group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which has been imposing harsh sharia on conquered territory and massacring civilians for many years. HTS leader al-Golani, who changed his name to al-Sharaa when he became the dictator of all Syria, had a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head until very recently.
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Al-Sharaa got his start with and trained under al-Qaeda, and broke into his bloody business by fighting American soldiers. He is guilty of many atrocities, and his forces are directly implicated in the 2025 genocide against Syrian Christians and Druze. HTS and ISIS are historically rival terror groups, but it is interesting that the ambush of our troops appears to be tied both to ISIS and to al-Qaeda. It seems Islamic jihadis are working together as they occasionally do against a common enemy.
CENTCOM announced on X:
[We] conducted a strike in northwest Syria on Jan. 16, that resulted in the death of a leader affiliated with Al-Qaeda who had direct ties to an ISIS terrorist responsible for an ambush which killed two U.S. service members and an American interpreter on Dec. 13, 2025.
Bilal Hasan al-Jasim was an experienced terrorist leader who plotted attacks and was directly connected with the ISIS gunman who killed and injured American and Syrian personnel last month in Palmyra, Syria.
This is an important move for the safety of our men still overseas, though, to be honest, I’m not really sure why we still have U.S. troops in Syria. We have clearly accomplished little — the current regime is as vicious as the former one, and fanatical on Islamic jihad. Indeed, as noted above, HTS is an offshoot of al-Qaeda. Having troops there in Syria seems to endanger our men without any justification for that extreme danger.
Perhaps the bloody ambush in December was a sign that America should pull out of Syria. The lives of our men are not worth whatever unsuccessful nation-building we’ve been engaged in there for so many years. Strike the terrorists we can and end it.
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