US Air Strike in Syria Kills French-Born Bombmaker
US-led air strikes in Syria have killed 24-year-old French bombmaker David Drugeon, a Muslim convert who joined an al-Qaeda offshoot, the Khorasan group, Fox News reported Thursday.airstrikes
A strike by a US Predator drone struck a vehicle in Syria’s Idlib province, believed to be carrying Drugeon, the media group said. The car’s driver lost a leg and was not expected to live, while a passenger believed to be Drugeon was killed, Fox said, citing “well-placed military sources.”
US officials confirmed to Fox they had carried out strikes Wednesday but said they were still assessing the damage and could not confirm Drugeon had been killed.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights had said earlier that US-led coalition strikes had overnight hit a vehicle linked to the Al-Nusra group, which is Al-Qaeda’s Syrian branch.
The militant group confirmed the strikes on Twitter, saying they were carried out by “the alliance of Crusaders and Arabs on Al-Nusra positions, causing deaths, mostly of civilians.”
Drugeon, who hails from Brittany in western France, reportedly joined an al-Qaeda faction in Pakistan fighting US troops in neighboring Afghanistan in 2010.
