While the US has been redeploying much of its force inside Syria to the far south, they’ve reportedly carried out a high profile raid against ISIS in Atimeh in the Idlib Governorate. Though the special forces raid was in the northwest of Syria, some reports suggest the Iraqi military participated in the operation.
Details are still emerging, and the Pentagon has so far declined any comment, so a lot of the information is coming from second-hand sources like Syrian militia group Burkan al-Furat. The reports suggest at least three ISIS figures, high ranking ones, were captured in the operation, while another ISIS member was killed.
The captured were tentatively identified as Abu Wadah al-Farani, Abu Qais al-Iraqi and Abu Muhmmad al-Iraqi. The slain was said to be Salah Numan, who was killed as he tried to flee the site of the raid.
Faransi is a former member of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an al-Qaeda linked group that is now the current Syrian government. He was said to be from France, and was heavily involved in ISIS recruiting European members. Abu Qais al-Iraq was identified as a top ISIS security official.
Abu Muhammad al-Iraqi is perhaps the most surprising, as the reports identified him as ISIS’ former governor of Salahuddin Province in Iraq, but he had also been reported to have been killed by US force over a decade ago.
The number of people reported killed by the US only to emerge still alive is fairly substantial across the region, so it’s possible this is the same person, though it is also possible this report isn’t accurate and someone else was among the people captured. Until the US confirms the operation, it’s impossible to know for sure.
Some media reports suggested ISIS’ current caliph Abu Hafs al-Hashimi al-Qurashi was the target, and there were even rumors he was among the captured for a time, though it was later retracted, and whether he was the target or not, he apparently wasn’t captured.
ISIS has been trying to increase their number of attacks and reassert themselves in recent months, scaling up to attack the rival Islamist group HTS now that they are in power. That the leadership was in Atimeh is somewhat surprising though, as most of ISIS’ operations have been much further east within Syria, near the Iraqi border.
