Syria's Kurdish-led forces said Thursday they had killed a senior Islamic State group leader inside a camp housing tens of thousands of displaced people and jihadists' families.
Kurdish-led forces, aided by members of an international anti-jihadist coalition, "conducted a joint security operation in al-Hol Camp, targeting an ISIS senior official" who was killed, the Syrian Democratic Forces said in a statement.
The SDF described the operative as "an Iraqi national who was responsible for planning terrorist activities in the al-Hol camp".
The SDF are the de facto army of the Kurdish semi-autonomous administration that controls swathes of Syria's northeast, and regularly conduct anti-jihadist operations in the camp.
The US-backed force led the battle that dislodged IS fighters from the last scraps of their Syrian territory in 2019.
Al-Hol is the largest camp for displaced people who fled after the SDF overran the group's last Syrian stronghold, housing about 48,000 people according to the United Nations.
The squalid, overcrowded camp is notorious for security incidents and killings, with the UN reporting more than 40 deaths inside the facility since 2022.
More than half of those living in al-Hol are children, and residents also include displaced Syrians, Iraqi refugees as well as more than 10,000 foreigners from some 60 countries.
Kurdish authorities have long called for countries to repatriate their citizens languishing in Syrian camps, but Western government have been slow to respond, fearing backlash at home.
Militants of IS, despite its territorial defeat, continue to carry out attacks against civilians and security forces in both Iraq and Syria.
More than half a million people have been killed in Syria's civil war which erupted in 2011 after the government brutally cracked down on anti-government protests.