Donnerstag, 03.02.2022 / 15:31 Uhr

US Militär: IS-Chef in Syrien getötet

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Der Guardian meldet:

Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, the leader of Islamic State and one of the world’s most wanted men, has been killed during an overnight raid by US special forces in north-west Syria.

The pre-dawn attack on a house in the village of Atme, just south of the Turkish border, led to up to 13 casualties, among them women and children. It also resulted in the destruction of a US Apache helicopter, which had been used to carry special forces troops from Erbil in Iraq.

US officials believe Qurayshi directed last month’s spectacular assault on a prison holding IS inmates in the east of Syria. Thursday’s raid was the most significant by the US since Qurayshi’s predecessor Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed in October 2019 in a village 9 miles south of Atme. (...)

 

Residents of Atme were woken at about 3am by the sound of helicopters landing nearby. A man speaking Arabic through a loud speaker with an Iraqi accent told the occupants of the house that they had 15 minutes to surrender. After that time had elapsed, gunfire and explosions ripped through the night.

US troops remained on the ground for nearly two and a half hours, an inordinate amount of time for a special forces operation behind enemy lines. In that time one of the helicopters they had arrived on malfunctioned - in circumstances that remain unclear. It was quickly destroyed by a circling US fighter jet, in scenes that were reminiscent of the 2011 raid on Osama bin Laden’s hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in which a stealth helicopter was lost.