Islamic State leader killed in overnight US raid in Syria
The operation near the Turkish border followed a deadly Islamic State prison break in Syria last month.
The leader of the Islamic State group blew himself up during an overnight raid by US special operations forces in northwest Syria, President Joe Biden said this morning.
Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi and several civilians were killed during a pre-dawn raid at a house in Atmeh, in rebel-held Idlib province, just minutes away from the Turkish border.
“Last night at my direction, US military forces successfully undertook a counterterrorism operation,” Biden said in a statement Thursday morning. “Thanks to the bravery of our armed forces, we have removed from the battlefield Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, the leader of ISIS.”
Al-Qurayshi, also known as Hajji Abdullah, took command the IS jihadist group following the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi during a similar US special forces raid just an hour's drive away in October 2019.
