US Central Command believes that, on Saturday, an airstrike using a precision guided munition killed the “senior al Qaeda terror consultant and foreign fighter facilitator known as ‘Sheik,’ ” who was in a house in Ubaydi in western Iraq. Officials think the Sheik was in the area to confer with Abu Islam, another top al Qaeda figure killed in a recent airstrike. Connecting the dots: A USAF F-16 on Saturday flew a pre-planned strike, firing one GBU-38. It was the only preplanned airstrike noted for that day. Bingo.
The U.S. sent Air Force F-16s over central Syria in a show of force following the Dec. 13 killing of two U.S. Army Soldiers and one American civilian interpreter by a gunman linked to the Islamic State group.
