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2023-02-18 Syria-Lebanon-Iran

US says IS commander killed, troops wounded in NE Syria raid UPDATE in eastern Deir ez-Zor

BEIRUT (AP) — The U.S. military said Friday a helicopter raid led by its forces in northeast Syria left a senior leader with the Islamic State group dead and four American service members wounded.

Separately, local media and a monitor group said an IS attack on Friday in central Syria killed dozens of civilians.

The U.S. military said in the short statement that its operation was conducted Thursday night in partnership with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces which is allied with the U.S.

It added that "an explosion on target resulted in four U.S. service members and one working dog wounded." It did not say in which part of northeast Syria the raid was conducted.

It identified the killed IS commander as Hamza al-Homsi.

How... euphonic.

Despite their defeat in Syria in March 2019, IS sleeper cells still conduct attacks around Syria and Iraq where they once declared a "caliphate."

On Friday, IS gunmen in central Syria shot dead at least 36 people south of the town of Sukhna, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor.

Pro-government radio station Sham FM reported the militants ambushed people who were foraging for wild truffles in the desert. State television put the death toll at 53.

Update from NPA Syria giving us names and places at 1:30 p.m. ET:

On Saturday, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) announced the killing of two leaders of the Islamic State (ISIS), and the wounding of four soldiers of the US-led Global Coalition in two security operations in the countryside of Deir ez-Zor, eastern Syria.

The SDF Media Center released a statement, saying that its forces, with the support and participation of the Global Coalition forces, carried out two anti-ISIS security operations in the eastern countryside of Deir ez-Zor.

The Anti-Terrorism Units (YAT) of the SDF carried out the first operation in al-Sabha district in the eastern countryside of Deir ez-Zor, killing senior leader of ISIS called “Mohannad Al-Sari Al-Fadgham,” the statement added.

Al-Fadgham is “a member of the ISIS’s dangerous intelligence unit who was involved in assassinations against our forces,” said the SDF Media Center.

In the second operation, YAT attacked a senior ISIS leader, “Hamza al-Homsi,” who refused to surrender and blew himself up, wounding four soldiers of the Global Coalition.

A number of weapons and military equipment were confiscated during the operations, the SDF added.

Posted by Besoeker 2023-02-18 00:00|| || Front Page|| [23 views ] Top
File under: Islamic State