US commandos kill top IS leader in Syria raid

US commandos killed a senior Islamic State
group leader in a nighttime raid into Syria,
US officials said Saturday, as IS jihadists
seized the northern part of Syria’s ancient
Palmyra.



Across the borders, IS fought Iraqi army
reinforcements in the western city of Ramadi,
while Turkey said its armed forces shot down
a Syrian helicopter which violated its air
space.
US special forces raided Al-Omar in east
Syria on Friday night to capture senior IS
leader Abu Sayyaf and his wife Umm Sayyaf,
US officials said.
The bold operation, with elite commandos
striking at IS’s inner circle, was a rare use of
“boots on the ground” by the United States,
which has fought the jihadists almost entirely
from the air.
White House national security spokeswoman
Bernadette Meehan said Abu Sayyaf, who
played a senior role in IS’s lucrative oil
operations, “was killed when he engaged US
forces.”
His wife was being held in military detention
in Iraq.
Al-Omar, one of the largest oil fields in Syria,
lies in oil-rich Deir Ezzor province. Like
much of Deir Ezzor, Al-Omar remains under
IS control.
US Secretary of Defence Ash Carter called the
operation a “significant blow” to IS.
Meehan said US forces based out of Iraq had
conducted the raid “with the full consent” of
Iraqi authorities.
US forces suffered no casualties, American
officials said, without giving details on the
number of troops involved.
Members of the elite Delta special operations
unit descended on Sayyaf’s compound in
Black Hawk helicopters and Osprey tilt-rotor
aircraft, a defence official told AFP.
In a firefight, US troops killed “about a
dozen” armed militants, the official said, on
condition of anonymity. At one point, fighting
took place “at very close quarters, and there
was hand-to-hand combat.”
In central Syria, IS jihadists stormed and
seized control of most of Palmyra’s northern
neighbourhoods, the Syrian Observatory for
Human Rights said.
“IS advanced and took control of most of
northern Palmyra, and there are fierce
clashes happening now,” said Rami Abdel
Rahman, the monitoring group’s director.
The official Syrian news agency SANA
quoted a miliary source as saying regime
forces had prevented IS fighters from seizing
a hilltop southwest of the Islamic citadel.
The head of Syria’s antiquities department,
Mamoum Abdulkarim, meanwhile, voiced
extreme concern for the UNESCO world
heritage site, located to Palmyra’s
southwest.
“I am living in a state of terror,” Abdulkarim
told AFP in a telephone call.
He said IS “will blow everything up. They
will destroy everything,” if they enter the site,
adding that many of Palmyra’s artefacts, like
elaborate tombs, could not be moved.
IS began its offensive on Palmyra on
Wednesday and has since inched closer to
the ancient metropolis, executing at least 49
civilians in two days, according to the
Observatory.
Fearing the destruction of Palmyra, known as
the “pearl of the desert,” UNESCO has called
on the UN Security Council to act in order to
save one of the Middle East’s historic
treasures.
– 48 dead in air raids –
In northwest Syria, at least 48 civilians,
including nine children, were killed on
Saturday in regime air raids on Idlib
province, the Observatory said.
It said the air strikes targeted rebel-held
Idlib city and the towns of Saraqeb and Kafr
Awid.
Meanwhile, Turkey’s defence minister said
armed forces shot down a Syrian helicopter
that had violated Turkish air space on
Saturday.
“A Syrian helicopter was downed that
violated the border for a period of five
minutes within a seven mile (11 kilometre)
limit,” Defence Minister Ismet Yilmaz said,
quoted by the Dogan news agency.
Syrian state television had earlier indicated
the aircraft was a drone and vehemently
denied it could have been a manned aircraft.
In Iraq, IS fighters tightened their siege on the
last government positions in Ramadi, west of
Baghdad, a day after they seized the city’s
government headquarters.
Taking control of Ramadi would constitute
the group’s most important victory this year
in Iraq, and would give the jihadists control
of the capitals of two of its largest provinces.
Mosul, capital of Nineveh province, has been
under IS control since the jihadists launched
a lightning offensive in June 2014.
Anbar province, of which Ramadi is the
capital, extends from the Syrian, Jordanian,
and Saudi borders to the gates of Baghdad.
Military reinforcements have been sent to
Ramadi and other parts of Anbar, local
officials said, and Iraq’s army and the US-
led coalition have struck IS positions in the
area.