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| Rescue workers said the raid that killed Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi left a total 13 people dead, including four women and six children |
Damascus - The leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi al-Quraishi, has committed suicide when he was attacked by the United States military special forces (US). Quraishi blew himself up and his family during a raid in Syria this week.
Reported by Reuters, Friday (4/2/2022), Quraish is known to have led ISIS since the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the founder and previous leader of ISIS, in 2019 as well as in US military special operations. Baghdadi at that time also reportedly blew himself up during a US military raid in Syria.
According to President Joe Biden and US officials, as US special forces approached the Quraishi hideout in northwestern Syria in the early hours of Thursday (3/2) local time, he set off an explosion that killed himself and members of his own family, including children.
US officials said the explosion was so powerful that it threw the bodies of the victims out of the three-story building where the Qurayshi had been hiding. The bodies of the victims were also strewn across the streets of the city of Atmeh, Idlib province. US officials blamed ISIS for civilian casualties in the blast.
"Thanks to the courage of our troops, this terrible terrorist leader is no more," Biden said in a statement at the White House.
A senior White House official, who asked not to be named, believes the massive explosion killed Quraishi, his two wives and a child on the third floor. Another child is thought to have died on the second floor along with a lieutenant Quraishi and his wife, who died after opening fire on US soldiers. Two other ISIS militants were killed after firing on a US helicopter that was deployed in this raid.
The senior US official said the Qurayshi used the three-story building and a family living on the ground floor as "protective shields", which complicates planning for the raid.
US officials could not explain the difference between their version of the death toll report and that of Syrian rescue workers, which put at least 13 people killed, including four women and six children.
"It is very clear from the real-time operations review that a large explosion on the third floor was the cause of the death toll," the US official said.
Quraishi's death is a setback for ISIS after three years of being pushed back from Iraq and Syria. Since then, ISIS has launched a series of attacks in Iraq and Syria, with the latest involving raids on prisons in Syria where ISIS militants are held.
Quraishi, 45-year-old Iraqi, has rarely made public appearances since succeeding Baghdadi. He was injured and lost one of his legs in a US airstrike in 2015. Biden and US officials have called the Quraish the "driving force" behind the 2014 genocide of the Yazidi minority in Iraq, and he is said to have overseen ISIS's vast network from Africa to Afghanistan. .
"Last night's operation killed a major terrorist leader on the battlefield and sent a powerful message to terrorists around the world: We will hunt you down and find you," Biden said in a statement.