ISIS Chief Killed in US Army Night Airborne Raid
Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Feb 3: In a huge success for the Joe Biden administration, the US is claimed to have managed to annihilate the chief of the dreaded international terror group Islamic State (ISIS) forcing him to blow himself up along with his family members on Thursday. Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi had taken over the organisation after the death of Al-Baghdadi in 2019.
The White House claimed on Thursday that the US special forces carried out a night airborne raid on Thursday in North Western Syria during which the head of the Islamic State group blew himself and his family up. The operation was the biggest blow to the jihadist organisation since his predecessor, the better-known Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was killed in a similar raid in the same region of Idlib in 2019.
“Thanks to the skill and bravery of our Armed Forces, we have taken off the battlefield Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi — the leader of ISIS,” US President Joe Biden said in a statement. A senior White House official speaking ahead of an address by Biden said Qurashi detonated a bomb during the raid on the house where he was staying in the town of Atme. In doing so, he also killed members of his own family, including women and children, the official said. He lived in the house with his wife and three children while his widowed sister was living with her daughter on the upper floor. All of them were killed in the blast, sources said.
Qurashi, an Iraqi from the Turkmen-majority city of Tal Afar who was also known as Amir Mohammed Said Abd al-Rahman al-Mawla, replaced Baghdadi after his death in a US raid in October 2019. The US government had offered a $10 million reward for information leading to Qurashi, who was one of the world’s most wanted men.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor had said civilians were among at least 13 people killed in the operation, which saw elite US forces make a perilous helicopter landing near Atme. “Thirteen people at least were killed, among them four children and three women, during the operation,” Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said.
Initial reports that followed the operation near the town of Atme had suggested the target might have been a senior jihadist close to IS’ rival group Al-Qaeda. Before the identity of the raid’s target emerged, the owner of the building where Qurashi was staying described his tenant as leading an ordinary life. “This guy lived here for 11 months. I didn’t see anything suspicious or notice anything,” the landlord, who gave his name only as Abu Ahmad, said.
“He would come and pay the rent and leave. He lived with his three children and his wife. His widowed sister and her daughter were living above them,” he said. A witness said he woke to the sound of helicopters.
“Then we heard small explosions. Then we heard stronger explosions,” Abu Ali, a displaced Syrian living in Atme said, adding that US forces told residents “not to worry”. “We’re just coming to this house… to rid you of the terrorists,” the man quoted the US forces as saying in their loudspeaker messages.
The American helicopters took off from a military base in the Kurdish-controlled city of Kobani, Abdel Rahman said. Elite, US-trained members of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces joined the operation, he added. Farhad Shami, who heads the media office of the US-backed SDF, said the operation targeted “the most dangerous international terrorists.” Kurdish forces had also taken part in the raid against Baghdadi in 2019.
The two-storey building bore the scars of an intense battle, with torn window frames, charred ceilings and a partly collapsed roof. In some of the rooms, blood was splattered high on the walls and stained the floor, littered with foam mattresses and shards from smashed doors.
US special forces have carried out several operations against high-value jihadist targets in the Idlib area in recent months. The area, the last enclave to actively oppose the government of Bashar al-Assad, is home to more than three million people and is dominated by jihadists.
The region is mostly administered by a body loyal to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a group led by former members of what was once Al-Qaeda’s franchise in Syria. Atme is home to a huge camp for families displaced by the decade-old conflict and which experts have warned was being used by jihadists as a place to hide among civilians.
On October 23, the US military announced the killing of senior Al-Qaeda leader Abdul Hamid al-Matar. “Al-Qaeda uses Syria as a safe haven to rebuild, coordinate with external affiliates, and plan external operations,” Central Command spokesman Army Major John Rigsbee said at the time.
Syrian government forces and their main military backer Russia have carried out repeated attacks against jihadist and other rebel groups in the Idlib region. However a ceasefire deal which was brokered by Moscow and Ankara, the two main foreign powers in the area, almost two years ago is still officially in place.
Assad has long insisted his goal was to recapture the whole of Syria, including Idlib province, but the contours of the jihadist-run enclave have remained largely unchanged since early 2020. The death of the jihadist group’s top leader comes two weeks after the group had staged a huge attack to spring IS fighters from a Kurdish-run prison in northeastern Syria. Hundreds of people were killed in what was IS’s most high-profile operation since the demise of its “caliphate” nearly three years earlier.
Meanwhile, in Pakistan, separatist insurgents in Baluchistan attacked two military bases, killing one soldier while losing four of their own men, the army said, in the latest violence in the resource-rich province where China is investing. The overnight attacks came hours before Prime Minister Imran Khan set off for Beijing for the opening of the Winter Olympic Games.
“We salute our brave security forces who repulsed terrorist attacks,” Khan said in a statement on Thursday. The Baloch Liberation Army (BLF) insurgent group claimed responsibility in a statement saying its suicide bombers had detonated explosive-laden vehicles at the entrance of the bases killing more than 50 soldiers. Last week, the insurgents killed 10 soldiers in an attack on a post near the port of Gwadar on the Arabian Sea, the heaviest casualty for the army in the Baluchistan insurgency in years.
