A uncommon U.S. navy floor raid in northwestern Syria has captured a high ISIS chief, in line with the U.S.-led anti-ISIS coalition.
A U.S. protection official mentioned there have been no accidents to U.S. navy personnel and no injury to plane concerned within the raid.
“Coalition forces detained a senior Daesh chief throughout an operation in Syria June 16,” Operation Inherent Resolve mentioned in a press release. “The detained particular person was assessed to be an skilled bomb maker and facilitator who turned one of many group’s high leaders in Syria.”
A U.S. official instructed the title of the ISIS chief captured within the raid is Hani Ahmed al-Kurdi and described him as actively planning ISIS operations.
“Although degraded, ISIS stays a risk. We stay devoted to its defeat. Final evening’s operation, which took a senior ISIS operator off the battlefield, demonstrates our dedication to the safety of the Center East and to the enduring defeat of ISIS,” mentioned Gen. Erik Kurilla, the commander of U.S. Central Command, in a press release offered to ABC Information.
U.S. navy floor raids into northwestern Syria are dangerous as a result of they’re carried out far west from U.S. bases in japanese Syria in areas which can be managed both by extremists or Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s authorities.
“The mission was meticulously deliberate to reduce the danger of collateral injury, notably any potential hurt to civilians,” OIR mentioned. “There have been no civilians harmed through the operation nor any injury to Coalition plane or property.”
U.S. navy floor operations in northwestern Syria have focused high ISIS leaders, most notably Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who killed himself throughout an October 2019 raid close to the border with Turkey that was carried out by the elite Delta Power.
His successor, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, detonated himself with an explosion throughout an identical raid in February this 12 months.
“Coalition forces will proceed to work with our companions, the Syrian Democratic Forces and the Iraqi Safety Forces, together with the Peshmerga, to hunt the remnants of Daesh wherever they conceal to make sure Daesh’s enduring defeat.,” Operation Inherent Resolve added. Daesh is one other title used to explain ISIS.
The phobia group was militarily defeated in Syria in 2019 and since then, its leaders have gone into hiding to forestall being focused by U.S. forces.
Nonetheless, ISIS fighters keep a low-level insurgency in Iraq and Syria, and the group continues to encourage followers within the West to commit violent assaults.
In January, ISIS mounted its largest operation since its navy defeat, as a whole lot of ISIS fighters tried to free hundreds of terrorist fighters detained at a jail in Hasakah in northeast Syria.
After 10 days of heavy preventing, U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish forces, helped by U.S. airstrikes, had been capable of retake the jail, although it’s believed that a number of hundred ISIS prisoners had been capable of flee.
Kurdish forces claimed that 374 ISIS fighters had been killed through the tried jail break.