“The U.S. operation killed 32 members of IS, among them four officials, including IS oil chief Abu Sayyaf, the deputy IS defense minister, and an IS communications official,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, using another acronym for ISIS.
U.S. officials have said “about a dozen” people were killed in the operation on Friday night, which was conducted by Iraq-based U.S. commandos in order to capture Abu Sayyaf.
Abdel Rahman said three of the four leading officials killed in the raid were from North Africa, but that the ISIS communications official was Syrian.
U.S. President Barack Obama approved the Special Forces operation, a rare use of “boots on the ground” by the United States, which has fought the jihadists almost entirely from the air.
The operation targeted an ISIS compound at al-Omar, one of Syria’s largest oil fields, which is located in the eastern Deir Ezzor province.
A U.S. official speaking on condition of anonymity said the commandos engaged the jihadists “at very close quarters... there was hand-to-hand combat.”
U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter called the operation a “significant blow” to ISIS, while Adam Schiff, a Democrat on the House intelligence committee, said U.S. attacks “have put increasing pressure on the economics undergirding the terrorist organization.”
Syria claims five ISIS leaders killed
Meanwhile, Syrian TV reported on Saturday that the Syrian army has killed five ISIS leaders in an attack in eastern Syria.A headline bar quoting the state TV correspondent in the eastern province of Deir al-Zor identified the five as Saudi, Turkish, Chechen, Jordanian and Iraqi.
ISIS controls wide areas of eastern Syria which it has declared part of a cross-border “caliphate” that includes territory in Iraq.........http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2015/05/17/ISIS-dead-in-U-S-Syria-raid-climbs-to-32-monitoring-group.html
17/5/15
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The Syrian army has killed five Islamic State leaders in an attack in eastern Syria, Syrian state TV reported on Saturday...
ReplyDeleteA headline bar quoting the state TV correspondent in the eastern province of Deir al-Zor identified the five as Saudi, Turkish, Chechen, Jordanian and Iraqi.
The United States said on Saturday its US special forces had carried out a raid that killed a Tunisian identified as a leading Islamic State member in the same area of Syria.
jpost.com by Reuters
17/5/15