A “successful” U.S. Special Operations counterterrorism mission in northwestern Syria killed ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi on Thursday, President Biden said.
“Thanks to the skill and bravery of our Armed Forces, we have taken off the battlefield Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi — the leader of ISIS,” the president said in a statement.
Biden said he ordered the raid to “protect the American people and our allies, and make the world a safer place.”
Biden and Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said there were no U.S. casualties.
At least 13 people, including six children and four women, were killed in shelling and clashes that followed the raid, according to the White Helmets rescue service, a civil defense group in the country.
Biden is set to speak publicly about the raid on Thursday morning.
Residents in Atmeh, a village in rebel-held Idlib Province, described a large ground assault, saying it was the biggest operation since the October 2019 killing of Islamic State group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Associated Press reported.
Several top al-Qaeda operatives and other militant groups still fighting President Bashar al-Assad live in the area, which is situated near the Turkish border. The area is home to a number of camps for internally displaced people from Syria’s civil war.
Residents told the AP helicopters flew overhead and U.S. forces clashed with gunmen for more than two hours around a two-story house. Witnesses said there was continuous gunfire and explosions at the scene.
Two U.S. officials told Fox News that an individual inside the home blew himself up. There were some civilian casualties as a result of the suicide bomber, the officials said, but the number of civilian deaths reported on the ground do “not correspond with what U.S. officials say occurred on the ground last night,” the officials reportedly said.
The raid came as the Islamic State has been attempting a resurgence, conducting a series of attacks in the region. Last month, the group committed a 10-day assault to seize a prison.