Washington — U.S. special operations forces conducted a large-scale counterterrorism raid in northwest Syria overnight Thursday that has once again left the ISIS terror group once again without a leader. Mr. Biden issued a brief statement early on Thursday describing the raid as a “counterterrorism operation to protect the American people and our Allies, and make the world a safer place.”
Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, the current leader of ISIS, was “taken off the battlefield” in the operation, Mr. Biden said, confirming that all U.S. forces who took part had returned safely.
A senior Biden administration official told CBS News senior White House and political correspondent Ed O’Keefe on Thursday that al-Qurayshi “exploded a bomb that killed him and members of his own family” as the raid got underway.”
Speaking later Thursday morning at the White House, Mr. Biden said the choice was made to go after the ISIS leader with a special forces raid rather than a missile strike in an effort to avoid civilian casualties. He said al-Qurayshi “chose to blow up” both himself and the entire third floor of the home he was holed up in, which led to the death of his own family members.
The president lauded the U.S. forces who carried out the raid, and called it “testament to America’s reach and capability to take out terrorists anywhere they hide in the world.”
“We will come after you and find you,” Mr. Biden warned other terror leaders.
Several residents told The Associated Press they saw body parts scattered around a house in the village of Atmeh, near the border with Turkey. They spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals following the raid, which they say involved helicopters, explosions and machine-gun fire.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a network of sources on the ground in Syria and has been a largely reliable source of information during the grinding civil war in the country, said the strike left at least 13 people dead, including four children and three women. The “White Helmets,” a volunteer rescue agency, said four women and six children were killed.
The senior administration official who spoke to O’Keefe on Thursday also said al-Qurayshi’s own bomb had killed women and children in his family.
“While we are still assessing the results of this operation, this appears to be the same cowardly terrorist tactic we saw in the 2019 operation that eliminated” al-Qurayshi’s predecessor, the official said.
Images purported from the aftermath of the raid quickly appeared on social media showing the bodies of victims, including small children.
CBS News national security correspondent David Martin said it was the biggest U.S. military operation in Syria since the October 2019 killing of then-ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. It had been planned for months, since at least December, when U.S. commanders became certain that they knew al-Qurayshi was staying at the home in Atmeh.
Charles Lister, senior fellow with the Washington-based Middle East Institute, remarked to Reuters that the U.S. forces “clearly … wanted whoever it was alive.”
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said troops from the U.S.-led coalition using helicopters landed in the area and attacked a house. It said the forces clashed with fighters on the ground.
Taher al-Omar, an Idlib-based activist, also said clashes broke out between the fighters in the area and special ops forces.
The residents and activists in the area described seeing a large ground assault, with U.S. forces using loudspeakers asking women and children to leave the area.
There was at least one major explosion. A U.S. official said one of the helicopters in the raid suffered a mechanical problem and had to be blown up on the ground. The U.S. official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details of the military operation.
The military operation got attention on social media, with tweets from the region describing helicopters firing around a building near Atmeh. Flight-tracking data also suggested that multiple drones were circling the city of Sarmada and the village of Salwah, just north of there in Idlib province.
The clandestine operation came with ISIS apparently trying to stage a comeback after its effort to establish a caliphate failed in 2019, following several years of fighting in Syria and Iraq. In recent weeks and months, the group has launched a series of attacks in the region, including a 10-day assault late last month to seize a prison in northeastern Syria.
A U.S.-backed Kurdish-led force said Monday that the Gweiran prison, also known as al-Sinaa prison, is now fully under its control. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said more than 120 of their fighters and prison workers died in the effort to thwart the ISIS plot. The prison houses at least 3,000 ISIS detainees.
The attempted prison break was the biggest military 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 Fighting Vehicles to the prison area to help the Kurdish forces.
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 earlier this year.
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