A top Syrian Kurdish commander died Sunday, several days after sustaining injuries during a U.S.-backed campaign to unseat the Islamic State group from its de-facto Syrian capital, Raqqa. The commander fought against IS militants in Kobani in early 2015, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group. Those battles, the first major setback to the IS advance in northern Syria, were seen as instrumental to securing U.S. support for Kurdish forces in the country's multi-layered conflict. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put the toll at 23. He was evacuated by U.S. forces to a hospital in the Iraqi Kurdish city of Sulaymaniyah, where he died.

Source: ABC News June 05, 2016 12:22 UTC