THIRTEEN people including six children and four women are reported dead from a US special forces raid within Syria’s jihadist-controlled Idlib province.
US President Joe Biden said the mission had killed Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Quaryshi, the head of the Islamic State (Isis) terror group since the US killing of its founder Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, also in Idlib, in 2019.
The overnight raid took place in Atmeh, a town near the Turkish border where tens of thousands of people displaced by the Syrian civil war have fled, many of them rebel fighters taking refuge in the last part of Syria still controlled by insurgents.
Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said: “The mission was successful. There were no US casualties.”
Some speculated the raid was linked to the Isis-led attempt to spring fighters from a prison guarded by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces last month.
A journalist working with the Associated Press said they saw body parts scattered near the site of the raid, while local residents speaking anonymously reported helicopters, explosions and machine-gun fire. The top floor of the house raided was almost entirely destroyed.
The casualty figures were given by the White Helmets, an officially humanitarian organisation that has close links to jihadist groups. Idlib is the last stronghold of the Syrian revolt, and home to the Syrian Salvation Government dominated by the Tahrir al-Sham terror group and dependent on Turkey for military protection, even using the Turkish lira as currency.
Source: Morning Star
