Six children and four women among 13 people killed as the United States special operations forces launch raid in Idlib province in Syria.
The overnight operations targeted a building in Atmeh, a densely populated town in northwest Syria near the Turkish border, where lakhs of civilians displaced by the country’s decade-long war live, Al Jazeera reported.
“We woke up at 1am to the sound of helicopters … and then at around 3am we heard a barrage of attacks,” Abu Fahed al-Homsi, a displaced Syrian who lives a block away from the site of the attack, told Al Jazeera.
“When the operation ended, we went to the area and saw a woman who apparently detonated an explosive vest, and inside the building, we saw some bodies, including [that of] a man and a child,” Mahmoud Chehadi, who lives nearby, said.
The Pentagon did not give any details about the raid, but said the “mission was successful.”
US President Joe Biden said the raid targeted the leader or ISIL (ISIS), Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi.
“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. All Americans have returned safely from the operation,” Biden said in a statement on Thursday.
