US aircraft earlier this month killed 11 al Qaeda operatives and leaders over two days in Idlib, Syria, the Pentagon announced. On Feb. 3, a US airstrike killed 10 terrorists who were meeting at a known location in the city. The next day, a strike killed Abu Hani al-Masri, a “legacy” terrorist who was linked to Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, Pentagon spokesman Navy Capt. Jeff Davis said in a Wednesday statement. Al-Masri ran training camps in Afghanistan in the 1980s and ’90s “where he recruited, indoctrinated, trained and equipped thousands of terrorists who subsequently spread throughout the region and the world,” Davis said. Al-Masri is a founder of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which is responsible for attacks on US personnel and allies, including a 1998 plot to blow up the US Embassy in Albania.
Members of Congress from both parties expressed frustration and dismay over the abrupt and still-unexplained firing last month of Air Force Gen. Timothy Haugh from his dual role as head of U.S. Cyber Command and director of the National Security Agency.