Biden says ISIS leader killed in Syria raid

“I’m grateful for the immense courage and skill and determination of our U.S. forces who skillfully executed this incredibly challenging mission,” Biden said, noting that no Americans were killed or wounded in the operation. “The members of our military are the solid steel backbone of this nation, ready to fly into danger at a moment’s notice to keep our country and the American people safe, as well as our allies.”

The nighttime raid occurred at a challenging time for the Biden administration, as it works with NATO allies in Europe to counter a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine and overcome the fallout from last summer’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.

On Thursday, U.S. troops arrived by helicopter in the town of Atma, in Syria’s Idlib province, calling out to those inside with a bullhorn, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters. A man, a woman and four children, all located on the compound’s first floor, emerged unharmed before the explosion, Kirby said.

The force of the blast throttled the surrounding area, said Ahmed, a local resident who spoke on the condition that he be identified by only his first name due to safety concerns. He recalled hearing the heavy thud of helicopter rotors as he was preparing to go to sleep about 1 a.m.

The sound was not unfamiliar in the area, Ahmed said, noting that helicopters often arrived to switch out Turkish troops stationed nearby. But this was different.

“The sound was horrible,” he said. He climbed to the roof of his building and saw machine-gun fire coming from one of the helicopters. The commotion did not subside until around 4 a.m., he said.

Senior administration officials, speaking to reporters on the condition of anonymity under ground rules established by the White House, said the operation lasted about two hours and unfolded in similar fashion to rehearsals. Military officials said they had assumed it was possible Qurayshi would trigger explosives if approached, as his predecessor, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, did when U.S. troops raided his compound in Idlib in 2019.

After the explosion, U.S. troops entered the building and exchanged gunfire on the second floor with one of Qurayshi’s lieutenants and the lieutenant’s wife, Kirby said. Both were killed, and four children who had been in that part of the building escaped without injury, he said.

Another child died on the second floor, Kirby said. While there are “strong indications” that civilians in the building died because of the explosion and “resistance” by Qurayshi’s lieutenant on the second floor, “we’re willing to take a look to just examine and make sure that there wasn’t any action that we might have taken that could have also caused harm to innocents,” he said. At least three civilians died in the raid, Kirby said.

Gen. Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie, who oversaw the operation as chief of U.S. Central Command, said in comments in Washington on Thursday that while the second floor was being cleared, a separate group of armed men in the area moved on the Americans. At least two of the fighters were killed after a U.S. helicopter opened fire on them, the general said.

Qurayshi’s remains were found by U.S. troops on the ground outside the building, McKenzie said. He had been thrown by the force of the blast from the third floor. He was identified by his fingerprints on-site, and subsequently by DNA analysis, Kirby said.

The U.S. troops also seized cellphones and hard drives on the scene, said a U.S. official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the issue’s sensitivity. From the Pentagon briefing room, Kirby said it is “common practice” for U.S. Special Operations troops to seize information that might be helpful in future counterterrorism operations. He declined to elaborate on what happened in this case.

A U.S. helicopter suffered a mechanical breakdown during the operation and was flown a short distance away to an open field. McKenzie said U.S. troops destroyed it, including with weapons from other aircraft, to ensure that no sensitive material would remain in Syria.

In northern Idlib, residents spent a sleepless night swapping rumors about who the raid had targeted. The province has been a bastion of opposition to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for more than a decade, and is home to millions of internally displaced people from other parts of the country. It is largely under the control of an Islamist militant group that was formerly affiliated with al-Qaeda called Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which is regarded as a terrorist group by the United States and other Western powers.

An official with the White Helmets, a first-responder group, said they were delayed in responding to the explosion because of the subsequent fighting, and that when they arrived there was “blood everywhere.” He spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the group’s behalf.

Videos circulating on social media, which The Washington Post was unable to immediately verify, captured what appeared to be the raid and its aftermath. In one widely circulated clip, the sound of heavy gunfire can be heard and what appears to be muzzle flashes appear above the skyline.

Other videos captured the sound of a loud warning being issued in Arabic, instructing children in the house to come out.

“The area is surrounded by land and air,” the warning said. “The children are without blame. If there are children, they should come to me.”

Mahmoud al-Sheikh, who works at an auto repair shop less than a mile from the house, said he did not know who lived there but often used to see “small children and women coming in and out.” There was nothing terribly extraordinary about the men in the house, he added, saying they did not outwardly match the description of hard-line Islamist fighters who often wore long beards.

Biden administration officials said that Qurayshi did not leave the building aside from occasionally going to the roof to pray, relying on his lieutenant and couriers for help. The family on the first floor was “unwitting” and did not appear to know who lived upstairs, they said.

The United States became aware of Qurayshi’s location late last year, and Biden was first briefed by senior U.S. military officials in the White House Situation Room about options in December, the administration officials said. The commanders brought with them a tabletop model of the building.

In following weeks, U.S. Special Operations troops ran numerous rehearsals of the operation, Kirby said. On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Army Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, met with Biden in the Oval Office and discussed the operation again, and the commander in chief approved them to move forward.

Fahim reported from Istanbul and Dadouch reported from Beirut. Karoun Demirjian, John Wagner, Felicia Sonmez, Amy Wang and Eugene Scott in Washington contributed to this report.