Washington — U.S. particular operations forces performed a large-scale counterterrorism raid in northwest Syria in a single day Thursday that has as soon as once more left the ISIS terror group with out a chief. Mr. Biden issued a short assertion early on Thursday describing the raid as a “counterterrorism operation to guard the American folks and our Allies, and make the world a safer place.”
Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, the present chief of ISIS, was “taken off the battlefield” within the operation, Mr. Biden stated, confirming that each one U.S. forces who took half had returned safely.
A senior Biden administration official advised CBS News senior White Home and political correspondent Ed O’Keefe on Thursday that al-Qurayshi “exploded a bomb that killed him and members of his circle of relatives” because the raid bought underway.”
Talking later Thursday morning on the White Home, Mr. Biden stated the selection was made to go after the ISIS chief with a particular forces raid slightly than a missile strike in an effort to keep away from civilian casualties. He stated al-Qurayshi “selected to explode” each himself and your entire third flooring of the house he was holed up in, which led to the loss of life of his circle of relatives members.
The president lauded the U.S. forces who carried out the raid, and referred to as it “testomony to America’s attain and functionality to take out terrorists wherever they cover on the planet.”
“We’ll come after you and discover you,” Mr. Biden warned different terror leaders.
A number of residents advised The Related Press they noticed physique elements scattered round a home within the village of Atmeh, close to the border with Turkey. They spoke on situation of anonymity for concern of reprisals following the raid, which they are saying concerned helicopters, explosions and machine-gun fireplace.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which depends on a community of sources on the bottom in Syria and has been a largely dependable supply of knowledge in the course of the grinding civil warfare within the nation, stated the strike left at the least 13 folks useless, together with 4 kids and three ladies. The “White Helmets,” a volunteer rescue company, stated 4 ladies and 6 kids had been killed.
The senior administration official who spoke to O’Keefe on Thursday additionally stated al-Qurayshi’s personal bomb had killed ladies and kids in his household.
“Whereas we’re nonetheless assessing the outcomes of this operation, this seems to be the identical cowardly terrorist tactic we noticed within the 2019 operation that eradicated” al-Qurayshi’s predecessor, the official stated.
AP Picture/Ghaith Alsayed
CBS News nationwide safety correspondent David Martin stated it was the most important U.S. navy operation in Syria for the reason that October 2019 killing of then-ISIS chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. It had been deliberate for months, since at the least December, when U.S. commanders turned sure that they knew al-Qurayshi was staying on the dwelling in Atmeh.
In his remarks on the White Home, President Biden stated al-Qurayshi had been “answerable for the current brutal assault on a jail in northeast Syria,” and that he was “the driving pressure behind the genocide of the Yazidi folks in northwestern Iraq in 2014.”
ABDULAZIZ KETAZ/AFP by way of Getty Pictures
The U.S. forces landed within the space of the home utilizing helicopters and attacked it. One of many American plane suffered mechanical issues and needed to be destroyed not removed from the raid, however the U.S. forces had been capable of evacuate aboard the opposite helicopters.
Taher al-Omar, an Idlib-based activist, stated clashes broke out between fighters within the space and the particular ops forces.
Residents and activists within the space described seeing a big floor assault, with U.S. forces utilizing loudspeakers asking ladies and kids to go away the world.
The navy operation bought consideration on social media, with tweets from the area describing helicopters firing round a 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 there in Idlib province.
The clandestine operation got here amid efforts by ISIS to stage a comeback after its bid to determine a caliphate failed in 2019, following a number of years of combating in Syria and Iraq. In current weeks and months, the group has launched a collection of assaults within the area, together with the 10-day assault late final month to grab a jail in northeast Syria.
The tried jail break was the most important navy operation by the extremist group since ISIS was defeated and members scattered to havens in 2019. The U.S.-led coalition carried out airstrikes and deployed American personnel in Bradley Combating Autos to the jail space to assist the Kurdish forces.
