US raid kills senior ISIS official near Syria's border with Turkey
The US raid killed a senior ISIS official believed to be next in line for the group’s top leadership role, a US official said.
WASHINGTON — US special operations forces carried out a helicopter-borne raid that killed two senior Islamic State officials near Syria’s northwestern border with Turkey, two US officials confirmed to Al-Monitor.
Syria's state-owned Al-Ikhbariya, citing a security source, said an Iraqi national known as Salah Numan, also known as Ali, was killed by US forces as he attempted to flee from the house in Atmeh, and that another man was shot during the raid by forces affiliated with the US-led coalition. Syrian reports suggested that a woman of French origin was also found at the site, although her status remains unclear.
US officials did not confirm to Al-Monitor the identities of the two men said to have been killed in the nighttime raid. One was believed to be the runner-up to lead the Sunni jihadist organization, one official said.
There was no confirmation that the raid targeted ISIS' current top leader, Abu Hafs al-Qurayshi.
A spokesperson for the Pentagon and another for US Central Command said they were “aware of the reports” but could not confirm anything at the time.
Why it matters: The raid was the latest in a string of operations by US forces targeting remaining ISIS leaders hiding in northwest Syria since the group's final territorial holdout was captured by US-backed, Kurdish-led forces in 2019.
ISIS has been driven underground largely by a multi-year military campaign led by the US and local allies, with at least five consecutive top leaders being killed since 2019 — four of them in northeast Syria not far from Turkey’s border.
Last month, US special operations forces carried out a raid near al-Bab that led to the death of a senior ISIS regional leader and two of his adult sons.
In February 2022, Delta Force operators surrounded another house in Atmeh in another overnight raid. Inside, ISIS’ second self-described caliph, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi, blew himself up after a brief firefight.
ISIS’ founder and first so-called caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, similarly detonated himself during a raid by Delta operators in Barisha, less than an hour’s drive south of Atmeh in 2019.
What’s next: The overthrow of the Bashar al-Assad regime by Syrian Islamist militants has led to new levels of intelligence coordination between the US and Idlib’s former HTS rulers now in charge in Damascus.
But formal diplomatic relations will need to be finalized and intelligence-sharing agreements hashed out before US forces can operate directly with Damascus' forces.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
