President Biden announced Thursday that U.S. forces killed the leader of Islamic State during an overnight raid in Syria that first responders reported left 13 civilians dead.
“Last night at my direction, U.S. military forces in northwest Syria successfully undertook a counterterrorism operation to protect the American people and our allies, and make the world a safer place,” Biden said in a statement. “Thanks to the skill and bravery of our Armed Forces, we have taken off the battlefield Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi—the leader of ISIS.”
The president said all U.S. troops returned safely from the mission, which the U.S. military said early Thursday had been a “successful” counterterrorism operation, without specifying its target. Biden is set to address the nation on the raid from the White House at 6:30 a.m. Pacific.
First responders told the Associated Press that 13 people were killed, including six children and four women. Residents told the AP that helicopters flew overhead and U.S. forces clashed with gunmen for more than two hours around a two-story house surrounded by olive trees.
They described continuous gunfire and explosions that jolted the sleepy village of Atmeh in Idlib province, near the Turkish border, an area dotted with camps for internally displaced people from Syria’s decade-long civil war.
Activists near Deyr Ballout, a Syrian hamlet a few miles from the Syrian-Turkish border, reported on social media that they saw helicopters flying in the area sometime after midnight.
Several videos — which could not be independently verified — purport to show the attack. The sounds of heavy machine-gun fire can be heard in one; in another, a fire breaks out at the entrance of a two-story building, and a voice on a loudspeaker tells those inside that the area is surrounded and that children should come out.
Video taken by a reporter with Al-Akhbar Al-Aan, a UAE-based news channel, purported to show the building where the operation took place. The clip shows a scene of destruction, with cinderblocks spilling over the side of the building where ordnance had struck; rubble and detritus cover the floor along with a big smear of blood.
Qurayshi reportedly took over as leader of Islamic State in October 2019 after U.S. forces killed the terrorist group’s previous leader, Abu Bakr Baghdadi.
Wilber reported from Washington and Bulos from Kyiv, Ukraine. The Associated Press contributed to this report.