U.S. Special Forces Raid Syrian Site in Search of Terrorist Leader

The Pentagon did not offer any added information nor would officers validate the id of the terrorist chief or no matter whether the unique was killed or captured.

President Biden is envisioned to handle the navy procedure Thursday early morning, U.S. officers reported.

The distinctive forces, in conjunction with other troops, raided a web site in the Atmeh space in Syria’s Idlib province for much more than two hours, reportedly resulting in various fatalities and the destruction of some structures, according to eyewitness accounts filtered by way of social media. U.S. troops exchanged fire with enemy forces on the floor, according to those people social-media reports.

The noted web page of the raid, a constructing, is about 15 miles from the village of Barisha, Syria where Islamic Point out leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi died in October 2019 in the course of a U.S.-led raid concentrating on him.

The operation was in the preparing stages for at least the past numerous days, U.S. officials claimed. Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, the head of U.S. Central Command, which is dependable for navy operations in the Middle East, was predicted to look in man or woman at a conference in Washington on Thursday. The group modified his participation earlier this week to digital remarks, so he could continue being at Central Command’s headquarters in Tampa, Fla., according to people common with the issue. By late Wednesday, the general’s workers had pulled him out of the meeting entirely, according to officials with the Center East Institute feel tank, where he was anticipated to look.

Charles Lister, a Syria specialist at the Center East Institute, mentioned that dependent on discussions he experienced had with persons in the place and videos posted on social media the raid began about 1 a.m. local time when two or a few helicopters landed in the Atmeh area—where there are a number of camps for internally displaced people—and surrounded a household building. Working with a loudspeaker, U.S. troops demanded that women and young children vacate the building, he said.

The focus on of the raid would have to be a considerable person or folks provided the firepower that U.S. forces brought to the struggle and the threats associated, he stated.

The space of northwest Syria where the raid took area is nominally underneath the management of Turkey, but the de facto ability is Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a jihadist team and former al Qaeda affiliate that is now hostile to each al Qaeda and its rival, Islamic State. Al Qaeda has accused the jihadist team of supporting aid U.S. drone strikes from its personnel, Mr. Lister stated.

Authorities mentioned it is really hard for the U.S. to disregard the region, given the groups that operate there.

“It is component of Syria in which extremist teams are combined in with other components of the opposition,” claimed Andrew Tabler, a former Point out Division formal who is now with the Washington Institute for Close to East Coverage, referring to the Syrian opposition. “It reveals that no matter how much Syria is out of the headlines, the complications remain the very same.”

The Atmeh region, Mr. Tabler reported, includes a armed forces base that experienced been used in the previous by the Free Syrian Army and other teams opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. It has rough terrain and is adjacent to the Turkish border.

—Michael R. Gordon contributed to this posting.

Publish to Gordon Lubold at [email protected], Nancy A. Youssef at [email protected] and Warren P. Strobel at [email protected]