US troops capture Islamic State leader in Syria raid

Helicopter-borne United States troops working with Syrian Kurdish-led forces on Saturday captured an Islamic State provincial official in Syria, the US military said.The IS official, identified as Batar, was “involved in planning attacks on… detention centers and manufacturing improvised explosive devices,” the US military’s Central Command said.

Neither civilians nor US forces were killed or injured in the operation carried out with the help of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), it added.

The raid came a day after four US troops were wounded as they conducted another raid to kill a senior IS group leader in northeastern Syria, CENTCOM said.

That raid led to the death of an IS leader identified as Hamza al-Homsi, who CENTCOM said “oversaw the group’s deadly terrorist network in eastern Syria.”

Washington leads an international coalition battling IS and conducts periodic raids and strikes targeting the group.

After the jihadists lost their last territory to local Kurdish-led forces backed by the coalition in 2019, IS remnants in Syria mostly retreated into desert hideouts in the country’s east.

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AFP

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