US President Biden says ISIS leader killed during raid in Syria

The chief of the violent Islamic State group was killed throughout an in a single day raid in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province, US President Joe Biden mentioned on Thursday.

The raid focused Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, who took over as head of the militant group on Oct. 31, 2019, simply days after chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi died throughout a U.S. raid in the identical space. A U.S. official mentioned he died as al-Baghdadi did, by exploding a bomb that killed himself and members of his household, together with ladies and kids, as U.S. forces approached.

He’s often known as Amir Muhammad Sa’id Abdal-Rahman al-Mawla.

The operation got here as IS has been making an attempt for a resurgence, with a sequence of assaults within the area, together with a 10-day assault late final month to grab a jail.

U.S. particular forces landed in helicopters and assaulted a home in a rebel-held nook of Syria, clashing for 2 hours with gunmen, witnesses mentioned. Residents described steady gunfire and explosions that jolted the city of Atmeh close to the Turkish border, an space dotted with camps for internally displaced folks from Syria’s civil conflict.

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First responders reported that 13 folks had been killed, together with six youngsters and 4 ladies.

Biden mentioned in an announcement that he ordered the raid to “shield the American folks and our allies, and make the world a safer place.” He deliberate to handle the American public later Thursday morning.

“Because of the ability and bravado of our Armed Forces, we’ve got taken off the battlefield Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi — the chief of ISIS,” Biden mentioned in an announcement. He mentioned all People concerned within the operation returned safely.

The 2-story home, surrounded by olive timber in fields outdoors Atmeh, was left with its prime flooring shattered and blood spattered inside. A journalist on project for The Related Press and several other residents mentioned they noticed physique components scattered close to the positioning. Most residents spoke on situation of anonymity for worry of reprisals.

The Pentagon didn’t initially determine the goal of the raid. “The mission was profitable,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby mentioned in a short assertion. “There have been no U.S. casualties.”

Idlib is basically managed by Turkish-backed fighters however can also be an al-Qaida stronghold and residential to a number of of its prime operatives. Different militants, together with extremists from the rival IS group, have additionally discovered refuge within the area.

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“The primary moments had been terrifying, nobody knew what was taking place,” mentioned Jamil el-Deddo, a resident of a close-by refugee camp. “We had been apprehensive it might be Syrian plane, which introduced again recollections of barrel bombs that was dropped on us,” he added, referring to crude explosives-filled containers utilized by President Bashar Assad’s forces in opposition to opponents throughout the Syrian battle.

The highest flooring of the low home was nearly completely destroyed; a room there had collapsed, sending white bricks tumbling to the bottom beneath.

Blood might be seen on the partitions and flooring of the remaining construction. A wrecked bed room had a toddler’s wood crib and a stuffed rabbit doll. On one broken wall, a blue plastic child swing was nonetheless hanging. The kitchen was plagued by particles, with a blood splatter on the wall the place the door was blown off its hinges. Non secular books, together with a biography of Islam’s Prophet Mohammad, had been in the home.

The opposition-run Syrian Civil Protection, first responders often known as the White Helmets, mentioned 13 folks had been killed in shelling and clashes that ensued after the U.S. commando raid. They included six youngsters and 4 ladies, it mentioned.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition conflict monitor, additionally mentioned the strike killed 13 folks, together with 4 youngsters and two ladies. Ahmad Rahhal, a citizen journalist who visited the positioning, reported seeing 12 our bodies.

The Pentagon offered no particulars on casualties within the raid.

The Observatory mentioned the troops landed in helicopters. Residents and activists described witnessing a big floor assault, with U.S. forces utilizing megaphones urging ladies and kids to go away the world.

Omar Saleh, a resident of a close-by home, mentioned he was asleep when his doorways and home windows began to rattle to the sound of low-flying plane at 1:10 a.m. native time. He ran to open the home windows with the lights off, and noticed three helicopters. He then heard a person, talking Arabic with an Iraqi or Saudi accent via a loudspeaker, urging ladies to give up or depart the world.

“This went on for 45 minutes. There was no response. Then the machine gun hearth erupted,” Saleh mentioned. He mentioned the firing continued for 2 hours, as plane circled low over the world.

Taher al-Omar, an Idlib-based activist, mentioned he witnessed clashes between fighters and the U.S. drive. Others reported listening to at the least one main explosion throughout the operation. A U.S. official mentioned that one of many helicopters within the raid suffered a mechanical downside and needed to be blown up on the bottom. The U.S. official spoke on situation of anonymity to debate particulars of the army operation.

The army operation acquired consideration on social media, with tweets from the area describing helicopters firing across the constructing close to Atmeh. Flight-tracking knowledge additionally advised that a number of drones had been circling the town of Sarmada and the village of Salwah, simply north of the raid’s location.

The U.S. has previously used drones to kill prime al-Qaida operatives in Idlib, which at one level was house to the group’s largest focus of leaders for the reason that days of Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. The truth that particular forces landed on the bottom counsel the goal was believed to be of excessive worth.

An analogous assault in Pakistan, in 2011, killed bin Laden.

The Islamic State group has been reasserting itself in Syria and Iraq with elevated assaults.

Final month, it carried out its largest army operation because it was defeated and its members scattered underground in 2019: an assault on a jail in northeast Syria holding at the least 3,000 IS detainees. The assault appeared aimed to interrupt free senior IS operatives within the jail.

It took 10 days of combating for U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led forces to retake the jail absolutely, and the drive mentioned greater than 120 of its fighters and jail staff had been killed together with 374 militants. The U.S.-led coalition carried out airstrikes and deployed American personnel in Bradley Preventing Autos to the jail space to assist the Kurdish forces.

A senior SDF official, Nowruz Ahmad, mentioned Monday that the jail assault was a part of a broader plot that IS had been making ready for a very long time, together with assaults on different neighborhoods in Kurdish-run northeastern Syria and on the al-Hol camp within the south, which homes 1000’s of households of IS members.

The U.S.-led coalition has focused high-profile militants on a number of events in recent times, aiming to disrupt what U.S. officers say is a secretive cell often known as the Khorasan group that’s planning exterior assaults. A U.S. airstrike killed al-Qaida’s second in command, former bin Laden aide Abu al-Kheir al-Masri, in Syria in 2017.

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