“Thanks to the skill and courage of our Armed Forces, we have removed Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, leader of the Islamic State, from the battlefield,” the president said.
A White House official said the IS leader blew himself up during the operation by exploding a bomb he was carrying, with which he also killed members of his own family, including women and children.
The operation, in which Kurdish forces also participated, was carried out in the Idlib region, where al-Qurayshi’s predecessor, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was killed in a similar raid in October 2019.
Al-Qurayshi, also known as Amir Mohammed Said Abd al-Rahman al-Mawla, replaced Baghdadi after his death.
The operation came as IS was attempting a resurgence, with a series of attacks in the region, including a 10-day attack late last month to seize a prison.
US special forces landed in helicopters and raided a house in a rebel-held corner of Syria, clashing for two hours with armed men, CNN reported.
Residents described continuous gunfire and explosions rocking the town of Atmeh near the Turkish border, an area dotted with camps for internally displaced people from Syria’s civil war.
The opposition-led Syrian Civil Defence, first responders also known as the White Helmets, said 13 people – including six children and four women – were killed in the shelling and clashes that followed the US commando raid.
The Pentagon did not provide details about casualties in the attack.
Idlib is largely controlled by Turkish-backed fighters, but it is also an al Qaeda stronghold and home to several of its top operatives.
Other militants, including extremists from the rival IS group, have also found refuge in the region.
The IS has been asserting itself in Syria and Iraq with an increase in attacks.
Last month it carried out its biggest military operation since it was defeated and its members scattered underground in 2019: an attack on a prison in northeastern Syria that held at least 3,000 IS detainees.
The attack appeared to be aimed at freeing IS senior officials in prison.
After ten days of fighting, the US-backed Kurdish-led forces fully recaptured the prison, killing more than 120 of its fighters and prison workers along with 374 militants.
The US-led coalition carried out airstrikes and deployed US personnel in Bradley Fighting Vehicles in the prison area to assist Kurdish forces.
A senior SDF official, Nowruz Ahmad, said on Monday that the prison raid was part of a broader plot that IS had long been preparing, including attacks on other neighborhoods in Kurdish-controlled northeast Syria. and in the al-Hol camp in the south, which is home to thousands of families of IS members.
Source: Ambito
David William is a talented author who has made a name for himself in the world of writing. He is a professional author who writes on a wide range of topics, from general interest to opinion news. David is currently working as a writer at 24 hours worlds where he brings his unique perspective and in-depth research to his articles, making them both informative and engaging.
