“Last night at my direction, US military forces in northwest Syria successfully undertook a counterterrorism operation to protect the American people and our allies, and make the world a safer place,” Biden said in a statement.
“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 added, using another acronym for IS.
Biden was scheduled to make public remarks early Thursday on the operation.
A senior US administration official said al-Quraishi was killed in a raid. “At the beginning of the operation the terrorist target exploded a bomb that killed him and members of his own family, including women and children,” the administration official said.
After the killing of Islamic State founder Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in October 2019, the group named as his successor al-Quraishi, an Iraqi who was once held in US custody.
“While we are still assessing the results of this operation, this appears to be the same cowardly terrorist tactic we saw in the 2019 operation that eliminated al-Baghdadi,” the official said.
