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* Biden says U.S. took measures to minimise noncombatant damage

* Quraishi blew himself up, also killing family members

* Northwestern Syria is haven for several jihadist groups

By Suleiman Al-Khalidi and Nandita Bose

Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi al-Quraishi, had led Islamic State since the expiry in 2019 of its founder Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who was also killed when he detonated explosives during a raid by U.S. commandos.

Every bit U.S. forces closed in on Quraishi in northwestern Syria overnight, he triggered a boom that as well killed members of his own family unit, including children, according to Biden and U.Due south. officials.

The blast was so big information technology hurled bodies https://world wide web.reuters.com/world/middle-due east/islamic-land-leaders-flop-blew-bodies-outside-building-us-officials-say-2022-02-03 out of the three-storey building where Quraishi was and into surrounding streets in the town of Atmeh, U.South. officials said, blaming Islamic Land for all civilian casualties.

"Thanks to the bravery of our troops, this horrible terrorist leader is no more," Biden said in remarks at the White House.

Neither Biden nor U.Southward. officials briefing reporters gave a death toll, but Syrian rescue workers said at least 13 people were killed, including four women and six children.

Quraishi's death is some other setback for Islamic Country near three years after its self-declared caliphate was dismantled and its fighters defeated past U.S. and Iraqi forces.

Since so, Islamic State, also known every bit ISIS, has waged insurgent attacks in Republic of iraq and Syria. The most recent was last month when its gunmen stormed a prison house https://world wide web.reuters.com/world/center-e/syrian-kurds-say-islamic-sate-militants-surrender-after-prison-raid-2022-01-24 in northeastern Syria housing Islamic Country suspects.

Quraishi, a 45-year-old Iraqi https://world wide web.reuters.com/world/middle-due east/abu-ibrahim-al-quraishi-islamic-states-slain-leader-2022-02-03, had remained largely in the shadows since succeeding Baghdadi who led the group when it launched a lightning expansion in 2014 that shocked the world. It took control of large areas of Syrian arab republic and Iraq, imposing strict Islamic rule over millions and inspiring attacks in the West.

Biden and U.S. officials described Quraishi as the "driving force" behind the 2014 genocide of minority Yazidis in northern Iraq, and said he oversaw a network of Islamic State branches from Africa to Afghanistan.

"Last night's operation took a major terrorist leader off the battleground and has sent a strong message to terrorist around the globe: Nosotros volition come after you and discover you," Biden said.

The killing of Quraishi helps restore some of the Biden assistants's foreign policy credentials after it was widely criticized for last year'due south cluttered withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan.

Residents in Atmeh, near the Syrian-Turkish border, said helicopters landed and heavy gunfire and explosions were heard during the raid that began around midnight. U.South. forces used loudspeakers to warn women and children to leave the area, they said.

The Pentagon said 10 people were evacuated from the raid area, including children. General Frank McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command, told the Washington-based Middle East Institute that all of them were "mobile and safe" and left at the scene when U.S. forces departed.

U.Due south. military procedures to guard against noncombatant casualties are under scrutiny https://world wide web.reuters.com/world/study-faults-usa-military-civilian-casualties-pentagon-plans-review-2022-01-27 post-obit a high-contour mistaken drone strike in Transitional islamic state of afghanistan that the Pentagon initially hailed a success.

BODIES IN THE RUBBLE

A video taken past a resident and seen past Reuters showed the bodies of two evidently lifeless children and a man in the rubble of a building at the location.

Other footage showed rescue workers loading what appeared to be a small torso wrapped in a white plastic canvas into an ambulance. Other torso bags were in the back of the vehicle.

Using head torches, the workers looked for remains through chunks of concrete, children'southward toys and women's vesture in the wreckage. A kitchen was blackened and burned, windows hung from their frames and plastic utensils were one-half melted.

Reuters could non independently verify the images.

A Syrian man who witnessed the raid said he left his firm after midnight and saw aircraft in the heaven.

"10 minutes afterward we heard screams. 'Surrender, the house is surrounded,'" he said. "There was shelling from airplanes and automobile guns."

Another witness said he saw several bodies at the scene. "There was claret everywhere," he told Reuters. He said one U.S. helicopter appeared to suffer a mechanical failure and was diddled upward by the U.S. forces.

Local leaders, security officials and residents in northern Iraq say Islamic Country has been re-emerging as a deadly threat, aided past a lack of primal control in many areas.

"Quraishi'southward killing is a huge deal and a huge blow to ISIS considering ISIS never heard from this new leader," Syrian arab republic analyst Hassan Hassan said. "I call up ISIS volition keep to be weak and under pressure level as long as the Americans are on the ground in Republic of iraq and Syria and involved, because the U.South. serves equally anxiety on a spring: once you step off, it sort of bounces back."

Quraishi was hiding out in a region of Syria that is home to several militant groups including an al Qaeda-affiliated faction whose leaders include foreign fighters.

U.S. forces have for years used drones to target jihadists in the area, but Th'southward performance appeared to be the largest by U.South. forces in the northwest since the raid that killed al-Baghdadi, said Charles Lister, senior fellow with the Washington-based Middle E Establish.

Across Quraishi, who was once held in U.Due south. custody, little is known of the group's top levels – partly because information technology now operates in a secretive structure of autonomous local cells, rather than the centralised administration of the 'caliphate'.

The U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic Land said in mid-2019, after the group's battlefield defeat, that it retained fourteen,000 to 18,000 members, including 3,000 foreigners, though precise numbers are equally elusive as the group itself.

Analysts say many local fighters may accept slipped back into normal life, set up to re-sally when the opportunity emerges.

"This is an organisation that has retained a significant amount of manpower," said Lister. "In terms of kinetically operating cells, I imagine we are talking in the very low thousands in both countries together. But it's about impossible to measure."

(Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi Nandita Bose; Boosted reporting past Timour Azhari in Beirut, Susan Heavey, Trevor Hunnicutt, Phil Stewart, Steve The netherlands and Humeyra Pamuk in Washington; Writing by Humeyra Pamuk, Dominic Evans, Alistair Bell; Editing by Angus MacSwan, Daniel Wallis and Grant McCool)

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Source: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-02-03-isis-leader-quraishi-kills-himself-during-syria-raid-u-s-says/

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