U.S. kills ISIS leader backed by Turkey in Syria raid

In a statement, US President Joe Biden announced that the ISIS leader was “taken off the battlefield” in an operation carried out by the American special forces in the Atmeh area in the Idlib region of northern Syria.

A senior administration official said that the leader of ISIS exploded a bomb that killed him at the beginning of the operation.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, 13 people were killed during the helicopter-borne assault.

Biden announced that “All Americans have returned safely from the operation.”

In March 2020, then-US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the new leader of ISIS had been blacklisted.

Al-Qurayshi replaced Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi who was killed in an area occupied by the Turkish army in Syria in October 2019.

Shortly after Baghdadi’s death, ISIS officially appointed al-Qurayshi as the new leader of the group.

According to the information ANF obtained from reliable sources and confessions of ISIS members in 2020, Al-Qurayshi was protected by Turkey. He lived in Turkey for a long time. In a news article published by ANF on February 13, 2020, it was reported that the new leader of ISIS had moved to Turkey from Idlib at the end of 2017. According to the same sources, the new ISIS leader had already been living in Turkey for nearly a year at that time. He had offices in Antep and Ankara cities, and mostly stayed in Antep.

It is noteworthy that the latest US operation coincided with the Turkish airstrikes in Şengal, Maxmur and Rojava on the night of February 1st. However, it remains unclear whether the killing of the ISIS leader was a matter of negotiation between Turkey and the US.