The US military has “eliminated from the battlefield” the leader of the Islamic State (IS) group, Abu Ibrahim al-Hachimi al-Qurachi, during an operation conducted in northern Syria on the night of Wednesday February 2 to Thursday February 3, announced Joe Biden. All US soldiers are safe and sound, the US president said in a statement. This is the largest operation by US forces in this country since the one that led to the death, in October 2019, of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the previous leader of IS.
Nicknamed “the teacher” where the “destructive”Amir Mohammed Said Abdel Rahman al-Mawla was a jihadist with multiple aliases, presented by the jihadist group as “the emir” Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurachi. He had notably led the massacre of the Kurdophone minority of Yazidis.
“(We have) eliminated a major terrorist threat”, welcomed Joe Biden during a press conference at the White House on Thursday. The leader of the IS group is dead “in a final desperate gesture of cowardice”did he declare. “With no regard for the lives of his own family or others in the building, he chose to blow himself up, said the American president. Rather than face justice for the crimes he committed, taking many of his family members with him, as his predecessor did.”
US General Kenneth McKenzie, head of US Army Central Command (Centcom), also claims the jihadist saw a chance to surrender. “He killed himself and his immediate family without a fight, even as we tried to call him to surrender and offered him the option to survive”said the US military. “Due to the explosion on the second floor, US forces discovered the ISIS emir dead on the ground outside the building”he added, before specifying that the “fingerprint and DNA analyzes had confirmed” his identity.
The raid against Qurachi, little known to the general public, lasted about two hours. After the commando assault, which arrived by helicopter near camps for displaced people in the town of Atmé, in northwestern Syria, AFP correspondents found a partially destroyed building, the ground stained with blood. . The operation did “at least three civilian casualties”Qurachi’s wife and two children, the Pentagon said.