US special forces have carried out a raid inside Syria that killed a man identified as a senior Islamic State leader who helped direct the group’s oil, gas and financial operations, US officials said yesterday.
The White House said President Barack Obama ordered the raid that killed the Islamic State figure identified as Abu Sayyaf. US officials said his wife was captured in the raid.
It is the first publicly declared special forces operation by US forces in Syria since their failed attempt to rescue American journalist James Foley and other American hostages held by Islamic State last summer. Foley was killed by the ultra-radical group, an offshoot of al-Qaeda.
The United States is leading a coalition in a military campaign to roll back the jihadist group whose self-declared caliphate in Syria and Iraq has reshaped the region.
Islamic State pressed attacks in both countries yesterday.
In Iraq, its fighters battled Iraqi security forces in the city of Ramadi, where its black flag was raised over local government headquarters on Friday. Were it to fall, Ramadi would be the first major city to be won by the insurgents since an effort to push them back began last year.
In Syria, they fought Syrian government forces for control of the ancient city of Palmyra, an attack that has raised fears its Unesco World Heritage site could meet the same fate as monuments destroyed by Islamic State in northern Iraq.
While Washington is working closely with Iraq in the fight against Islamic State, it has shunned the idea of cooperating with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who it says has lost legitimacy to rule and must leave power.
The United States said it did not warn Assad in advance or coordinate with his officials over the special forces raid.
Conducted by US personnel based out of Iraq, the raid targeted area called al-Amr in the eastern Deir al-Zor province, an Islamic State stronghold rich in oil that bridges territory the group controls in Syria and Iraq.
What is the international community doing? Is it waiting to weep and despair as it did in northern Iraq?- antiquities chief
“During the course of the operation, Abu Sayyaf was killed when he engaged US forces,” White House National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said. The operation was conducted “with the full consent of Iraqi authorities”.
There was no immediate comment from Damascus.
Assad said in February he had been informed about US-led air strikes against Islamic State in Syria via third parties including Iraq, with which his government has close ties.
A US official said about a dozen fighters were killed in the overnight raid. Syrian state TV initially credited the Syrian army with carrying out the raid, saying it killed 40 Islamic State militants and the group’s “oil minister”, who it identified by a different name.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based organisation that tracks the war using sources on the ground, said at least 19 Islamic State members were killed in an air strike in the area which it said was carried out by US forces. Twelve of those killed were non-Syrians, it said.
Islamic State, the most powerful insurgent force in Syria, has in recent months launched frequent attacks on government- and rebel-held areas beyond its strongholds in Deir al-Zor and Raqqa provinces.
Its attack on Palmyra got underway last week. The group has seized positions within one to two kilometres of the city, also known as Tadmur and home to extensive ruins of one of the most important cultural centres of the ancient world.
The Observatory said yesterday that Islamic State fighters had made further gains in areas around the city. A military source said fighting was ongoing but at “a distance far from the city”, which he said had been secured by army reinforcements.
“We are in the fourth or fifth day (of the attack). What is the international community doing? Is it waiting to weep and despair as it did in northern Iraq?” Syrian government antiquities chief Maamoun Abdulkarim told Reuters.
The Observatory reported IS had seized a gas field east of Palmyra – a report denied by the military source. The source said IS was keeping up its attack on the city but the fighting was at a lower intensity.