If you needed any more evidence that Isis is alive and busier than ever, then here it is. Several ISIS militants were killed in a counterterrorism raid put on by the U.S. Special Forces in Northwest Syria. The raid targeted a known top ISIS leader and terrorist. The Press Secretary for the Pentagon, John Kirby, says that the U.S. didn’t suffer any casualties during the mission and that the operation was deemed very successful. The entire goal of the mission was aimed at eliminating a commander of ISIS, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi, who is more commonly known as Haji Abdulla. The event took place near the border of Turkey last Thursday. Reports indicate that Haji Abdullah was wearing a suicide vest during the raid, which detonated sometime during the attack.
Inside intelligence confirmed that Haji Abdullah was usually surrounded by children and women, which is why a decision was made to have special ops sent in to carry out the mission. This offered an increased risk of danger to American personnel but helped lessen the chances of civilian casualties, as airstrikes come with a great risk of harming locals. Local area residents reported that helicopters circled and hovered overhead in the area and asked all women and children to leave on loudspeakers before the attack. Despite this warning, six children passed away during the raid as well as four women of the total 13 that died.
The operation on Thursday is one of the largest carried out by American forces in the middle east region since 2019 when a special operations raid took out Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who was an Islamic State Leader.
As per the standard when it comes to Joe Biden, he barely touched on the raid in his comments to the public. He spoke briefly about the incident from the Roosevelt Room on Thursday but then refused to take any more questions after he made his remarks. Instead of taking questions, he told everyone that he was running late for his plane ride to NY, where he was going to discuss a task force against guns. Isn’t that ironic?
Author: Penny Jepson