ISIS leader detonated explosive in deadly U.S. military raid in Syria, Biden says
CBC
The leader of the jihadist group ISIS and several others were killed as a result of an American military raid in northwest Syria, U.S. President Joe Biden said on Thursday.
Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi was killed in the operation. Rescue workers said at least 13 people also died, including women and children.
"Last night's operation took a major terrorist leader off the battlefield, and it sends a strong message to terrorists around the world — we will come after you and find you," Biden said in brief remarks.
Qurayshi succeeded Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi who led the group when it took over swaths of Syria and Iraq, ruling over millions of people at the height of its self-declared caliphate.
Baghdadi was killed in Oct. 2019 by U.S. troops — also in a raid in north Syria — after ISIS fighters were defeated on the battlefield. The group is now waging insurgent attacks in Iraq and Syria.
Biden said even after the leadership transition, ISIS has been "targeting Americans, our allies, our partners and countless civilians in the Middle East, Africa and Southeast Asia."
Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby earlier described Thursday's raid as a successful counterterrorism mission, saying there were no U.S. casualties.
Syrian rescue workers said at least 13 people, including six children and four women, were killed by clashes and explosions that erupted after the raid began, targeting a house in the Atmeh area near the Turkish border.
Residents said helicopters landed and heavy gunfire and explosions were heard during the raid that began around midnight. U.S. forces used loudspeakers to warn women and children to leave the area, they said.
The U.S.-led coalition has targeted high-profile militants on several occasions in recent years, aiming to disrupt what U.S. officials say is a secretive cell known as the Khorasan group that is planning external attacks. A U.S. airstrike killed al-Qaeda's second in command, former Osama bin Laden aide Abu al-Kheir al-Masri, in Syria in 2017.
U.S. military procedures to guard against civilian casualties are currently under scrutiny, however, following a high-profile mistaken drone strike in Afghanistan that the Pentagon initially hailed a success.
Biden said that in this instance, he directed military leadership to "take every precaution possible to minimize civilian casualties," and that the decision was ultimately made to proceed with a special forces raid instead of an airstrike.
Referring to him by one of his pseudonyms, Hajji Abdullah, the U.S. president claimed the ISIS leader himself had killed several of the casualties by detonating an explosive "in a final act of desperate cowardice."
A number of jihadist groups with links to al-Qaeda operate in northwestern Syria, the last major bastion of rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad in the decade-long Syrian war. Leaders of ISIS have also hidden out in the area.
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