Biden says IS leader Qurayshi killed in US raid in Syria

Bloomberg

President Joe Biden said a “major terrorist threat” was eliminated during a US raid in northwest Syria in which IS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi was killed.
“Thanks to the bravery of our troops this horrible terrorist leader is no more,” Biden said in remarks at the White House after announcing earlier that he had ordered the US attack. “Our forces carried out the operation with their signature preparation and precision.”
The leader of the militant group was killed after he detonated a bomb in the third-story apartment he and his family shared in the Atmeh village in northwestern Syria as US forces closed in, according to senior US officials who briefed reporters on the mission. There were no American casualties, but the US said al-Qurayshi was responsible for the deaths of women and children when he blew himself up during the raid.
Al-Qurayshi took over as leader of the terrorist organization after Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed in a U.S. raid in 2019. Al-Qurayshi oversaw the group’s attacks on the Yazidi religious minority in Iraq.
Though the influence of IS waned as Syrian and Iraqi forces —variously backed by the US and its allies, as well as Iran and Russia —largely eliminated its territorial holdings in recent years, the group was never completely eradicated. In recent weeks, IS fighters launched an assault to seize a prison in Syria— an operation US officials said al-Qurayshi helped lead.
US intelligence had been tracking al-Qurayshi for months, and determined definitively that he was directing IS activities from the apartment building in December. The US gathered intelligence about the site —even building a diorama for the president and senior officials to review in the Situation Room — and spent weeks evaluating and practicing different missions.
The president made the final decision to conduct the raid on Tuesday morning, during a meeting with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The prospect of potentially saving children unaffiliated with the terrorist leader played a role in Biden’s decision to send in US special forces rather than conducting an airstrike, officials said.