An overnight raid by United States special forces in northwestern Syria led to the death of the Islamic State terror group’s top leader, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, President Joe Biden said Thursday.
As U.S. forces closed in, Al-Qurayshi detonated a suicide bomb “in a final act of desperate cowardice,” Biden said. The blast killed not only the ISIS leader, but also his wife and their two children, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said.
A senior deputy of al-Qurayshi and his wife were also killed after attacking U.S. forces, Kirby said, and a child was killed during the gunfight. All U.S. forces emerged safe from the raid, which Biden said was carried out under his direction.
Kirby said U.S. forces also safely evacuated ten people from the building, including eight children, and had positively identified al-Qurayshi’s remains using DNA and fingerprint analysis.
In Atmeh, a…
