The U.S. Special Operations counterterrorism mission in northwest Syria Thursday that killed ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi was “long planned,” and on the level and scale of the U.S. operation to take out Usama bin Laden in 2011, senior administration officials told Fox News.
U.S. military forces on Thursday “successfully” moved in on the global leader of ISIS, also known as Haji Abdullah, President Biden said Thursday. Al-Qurayshi took over as the leader of the Islamic State in 2019 after the U.S. counterterrorism operation that killed Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Senior administration officials said al-Qurayshi detonated explosives, which killed himself, his wife, and the children in their residence. Officials added that they believe he chose to live in a building with many residential families, not linked to ISIS, on purpose.
Officials suggested he could have been wearing a suicide vest, which they said, for a mission of this level, are a commonly used tactic, adding that the U.S. assault force team was well outside the range of what they assessed to be the likely explosive impact. Officials later added that it is not clear he was wearing a suicide vest, but he did set off explosives.
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