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 US raid in the identical space.
The operation got here as IS has been attempting for a resurgence, with a collection of assaults within the area, together with a 10-day assault late final month to grab a jail.
US 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 individuals from Syria’s civil battle.
Military units are proven exterior a destroyed home after an operation by the US army within the Syrian village of Atmeh in Idlib province, Syria, Thursday, Feb. 3, 2022. (AP)
First responders reported that 13 individuals had been killed, together with six youngsters and 4 ladies.
Biden mentioned in a press release that he ordered the raid to “protect the American people and our allies, and make the world a safer place.” He deliberate to deal with the American public later Thursday morning.
“Thanks to the skill and bravery of our Armed Forces, we have taken off the battlefield Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi — the leader of ISIS,” Biden mentioned in a press release. He mentioned all Americans concerned within the operation returned safely.
The two-story home, surrounded by olive timber in fields exterior Atmeh, was left with its prime ground shattered and blood spattered inside. A journalist on task for The Associated Press and a number of other residents mentioned they noticed physique elements scattered close to the location. Most residents spoke on situation of anonymity for worry of reprisals.
The Pentagon didn’t initially establish the goal of the raid. “The mission was successful,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby mentioned in a quick assertion. “There were no US casualties.”
A Syrian man rides his motorbike alongside broken retailers after an operation by the US army within the Syrian village of Atmeh in Idlib province, Syria, Thursday, Feb. 3, 2022. (AP)
Idlib is basically managed by Turkish-backed fighters however can be an al-Qaida stronghold and residential to a number of of its prime operatives. Other militants, together with extremists from the rival IS group, have additionally discovered refuge within the area.
“The first moments were terrifying, no one knew what was happening,” mentioned Jamil el-Deddo, a resident of a close-by refugee camp. “We were worried it could be Syrian aircraft, which brought back memories of barrel bombs that used to be dropped on us,” he added, referring to crude explosives-filled containers utilized by President Bashar Assad’s forces towards opponents through the Syrian battle.
The prime ground of the low home was nearly completely destroyed; a room there had collapsed, sending white bricks tumbling to the bottom under.
Blood could possibly be seen on the partitions and ground of the remaining construction. A wrecked bed room had a toddler’s picket crib and a stuffed rabbit doll. On one broken wall, a blue plastic child swing was nonetheless hanging. The kitchen was affected by particles, with a blood splatter on the wall the place the door was blown off its hinges. Religious books, together with a biography of Islam’s Prophet Mohammad, was in the home.
Emergency personnel sift by particles within the aftermath of a counter-terrorism mission carried out by the US Special Operations Forces in Atmeh, Syria, February 3, 2022 on this image obtained from social media. (Via Reuters)
The opposition-run Syrian Civil Defense, first responders also referred to as the White Helmets, mentioned 13 individuals have been killed in shelling and clashes that ensued after the US commando raid. They included six youngsters and 4 ladies, it mentioned.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition battle monitor, additionally mentioned the strike killed 13 individuals, together with 4 youngsters and two ladies. Ahmad Rahhal, a citizen journalist who visited the location, reported seeing 12 our bodies.
The Pentagon supplied no particulars on casualties within the raid.
The chief of the violent Islamic State group was killed throughout an in a single day raid in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province, President Joe Biden mentioned 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 US raid in the identical space. A US official mentioned he died as al-Baghdadi did, by exploding a bomb that killed himself and members of his household, together with ladies and youngsters, as US forces approached.
He is also referred to as Amir Muhammad Sa’id Abdal-Rahman al-Mawla.
The operation got here as IS has been attempting for a resurgence, with a collection of assaults within the area, together with a 10-day assault late final month to grab a jail.
US 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 individuals from Syria’s civil battle.
First responders reported that 13 individuals had been killed, together with six youngsters and 4 ladies.
Biden mentioned in a press release that he ordered the raid to “protect the American people and our allies, and make the world a safer place.” He deliberate to deal with the American public later Thursday morning.
“Thanks to the skill and bravery of our Armed Forces, we have taken off the battlefield Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi — the leader of ISIS,” Biden mentioned in a press release. He mentioned all Americans concerned within the operation returned safely.
The two-story home, surrounded by olive timber in fields exterior Atmeh, was left with its prime ground shattered and blood spattered inside. A journalist on task for The Associated Press and a number of other residents mentioned they noticed physique elements scattered close to the location. Most residents spoke on situation of anonymity for worry of reprisals.
The Pentagon didn’t initially establish the goal of the raid. “The mission was successful,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby mentioned in a quick assertion. “There were no US casualties.”
Idlib is basically managed by Turkish-backed fighters however can be an al-Qaida stronghold and residential to a number of of its prime operatives. Other militants, together with extremists from the rival IS group, have additionally discovered refuge within the area.
Blood covers the ground of a destroyed home after an operation by the US army within the Syrian village of Atmeh in Idlib province, Syria, Thursday, Feb. 3, 2022. (AP)
“The first moments were terrifying, no one knew what was happening,” mentioned Jamil el-Deddo, a resident of a close-by refugee camp. “We were worried it could be Syrian aircraft, which brought back memories of barrel bombs that used to be dropped on us,” he added, referring to crude explosives-filled containers utilized by President Bashar Assad’s forces towards opponents through the Syrian battle.
The prime ground of the low home was nearly completely destroyed; a room there had collapsed, sending white bricks tumbling to the bottom under.
Blood could possibly be seen on the partitions and ground of the remaining construction. A wrecked bed room had a toddler’s picket crib and a stuffed rabbit doll. On one broken wall, a blue plastic child swing was nonetheless hanging. The kitchen was affected by particles, with a blood splatter on the wall the place the door was blown off its hinges. Religious books, together with a biography of Islam’s Prophet Mohammad, was in the home.
The opposition-run Syrian Civil Defense, first responders also referred to as the White Helmets, mentioned 13 individuals have been killed in shelling and clashes that ensued after the US commando raid. They included six youngsters and 4 ladies, it mentioned.
A broken room and home windows are seen inside a home after an operation by the US army within the Syrian village of Atmeh in Idlib province, Syria, Thursday, Feb. 3, 2022. (AP)
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition battle monitor, additionally mentioned the strike killed 13 individuals, together with 4 youngsters and two ladies. Ahmad Rahhal, a citizen journalist who visited the location, reported seeing 12 our bodies.
The Pentagon supplied 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 US forces utilizing megaphones urging ladies and youngsters 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 am 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 by a loudspeaker, urging ladies to give up or go away 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, because the plane circled low over the world.
Taher al-Omar, an Idlib-based activist, mentioned he witnessed clashes between fighters and the US pressure. Others reported listening to at the very least one main explosion through the operation. A US official mentioned that one of many helicopters within the raid suffered a mechanical drawback and needed to be blown up on the bottom. The US official spoke on situation of anonymity to debate particulars of the army operation.
The army operation obtained consideration on social media, with tweets from the area describing helicopters firing across the constructing close to Atmeh. Flight-tracking information additionally prompt that a number of drones have been circling the town of Sarmada and the village of Salwah, simply north of the raid’s location.
The US has prior to now used drones to kill prime al-Qaida operatives in Idlib, which at one level was dwelling to the group’s largest focus of leaders because the days of Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. The incontrovertible fact that particular forces landed on the bottom recommend the goal was believed to be of excessive worth.
An identical assault in Pakistan, in 2011, killed bin Laden.
The Islamic State group has been reasserting itself in Syria and Iraq with elevated assaults.
Last 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 very 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 US-backed, Kurdish-led forces to retake the jail absolutely, and the pressure mentioned greater than 120 of its fighters and jail staff have been killed together with 374 militants. The US-led coalition carried out airstrikes and deployed American personnel in Bradley Fighting Vehicles 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 getting 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 hundreds of households of IS members.
The US-led coalition has focused high-profile militants on a number of events lately, aiming to disrupt what US officers say is a secretive cell generally known as the Khorasan group that’s planning exterior assaults. A US 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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With inputs from TheIndianEXPRESS
