Senior ISIS member killed in US military operation in Syria, official says

By Idrees Ali and Suleiman Al-Khalidi

A pre-dawn U.S. military raid in northwestern Syria early on Wednesday targeted and killed a senior member of the Islamic State group, a U.S. official told Reuters.

It was the second known raid in northern Syria by U.S. troops since former President Bashar al-Assad was ousted in December. The Islamist-led government that replaced him has pledged to prevent a resurgence of Islamic State and is part of an anti-ISIS alliance that includes the U.S.-led coalition fighting the group.

The U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the raid killed a senior ISIS member who was seen as a candidate to be the leader of ISIS in Syria.

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No U.S. troops were killed or injured in the raid, the official added.

A Syrian security source and Syria's state-owned Al-Ikhbariya said the target was killed as he tried to escape.

Another Syrian source said the target was an Iraqi national and was married to a French national. It was not immediately clear what happened to his wife.

The Pentagon did not immediately have any public comment on the reports.

The operation began at around 2 a.m. (1100 GMT), according to the Syrian security sources and neighbours in the town of Atmeh, in Idlib province.

Helicopters and drones provided air cover, one Syrian security source and residents said. Local Syrian forces set up a cordon around the neighbourhood, but U.S. forces conducted the actual raid, the second security source said.

Abdelqader al-Sheikh, a neighbour, said he was up late with his son and heard a noise in the yard next door.

"I called out, 'Who are you?' and they started speaking to me in English, telling me to put my hands up," Sheikh told Reuters.

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He said the armed forces stayed on the roofs of surrounding houses for the next two hours and that he could hear someone nearby speaking Arabic in an Iraqi accent.

In July, the Pentagon said its forces had conducted a raid in Aleppo province resulting in the death of a senior Islamic State leader and his two adult Islamic State-affiliated sons.

Idlib has been a hiding spot for senior Islamic State figures for years. U.S. forces killed ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in the village of Barisha in Idlib province in 2019 and his successor, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi al-Quraishi, in Atmeh in 2022.