A U.S.-led coalition airstrike in Syria this month killed two ISIS operatives who helped plot the November 2015 terror attacks in Paris, the Pentagon said Tuesday morning.
The precision airstrike, conducted in Raqqa on Dec. 4, killed three Islamic State leaders "directly involved in facilitating external terror operations and recruiting foreign fighters," including Salah Gourmat, and Sammy Djedou, who were involved in facilitating the attacks in Paris on Nov. 13, 2015, Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said in a statement.
At the time of the strike, the three terrorists were working "to plot and facilitate attacks against Western targets," according to the Defense Department.
The coordinated attacks on a concert hall, a major stadium, and restaurants in Paris last November, which were later claimed by ISIS, killed 130 people and wounded hundreds.
"Both were close associates of Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, the ISIL external operations leader who died in an August coalition airstrike," Cook said of Gourmet and Djedou, using another name for ISIS. "The third ISIL leader killed in this strike, Walid Hamman, was a suicide attack planner who was convicted in absentia in Belgium for a terror plot disrupted in 2015."
"All three were part of a network led by Boubaker Al-Hakim, who was killed in another coalition airstrike on Nov. 26. The three were working together to plot and facilitate attacks against Western targets at the time of the strike," Cook said.
Local forces backed by coalition airstrikes and support from U.S. Special Forces troops are currently engaged in operations against ISIS to retake Mosul and Raqqa, the terror group's strongholds in Iraq and Syria. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said this weekend that the U.S. military was sending 200 additional troops to help local Kurdish and Arab forces fighting ISIS in Syria.
"As the coalition and our local partners continue to take territory from ISIL on the ground in both Iraq and Syria, this strike highlights our relentless efforts to simultaneously target ISIL members who seek to attack the United States, our interests, and our allies around the world," Cook said Tuesday.
Coalition airstrikes have killed five top ISIS leaders plotting external attacks since mid-November as the terror group loses territory in its "caliphate" spanning portions of Iraq and Syria.