US Special Operations forces carried out what the Pentagon called a “successful” counterterrorism mission in northwestern Syria early Thursday. But the risky commando attack on what was believed to be a Qaeda leader came amid reports on the scene that several civilians, including children, may have been killed or injured.
US helicopters brought the commandos into position shortly after midnight and surrounded a house in Atmeh, a town close to the border with Turkey in the rebel-controlled province of Idlib, according to US analysts reporting Syrian social media and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. to follow.
A long, tense standoff followed, with helicopter loudspeakers in Arabic warning women and children in the house to evacuate, according to social media and witness statements. After about two hours, a major fight broke out, with rocket-propelled grenades and other fire blazing toward the Americans from the house and surrounding buildings.
During the operation, one of the US helicopters suffered a mechanical problem, had to land and was later destroyed by US attack aircraft. At one point, US commandos and their remaining helicopters flew away, witnesses said.
Shortly after midnight on Thursday in Washington, Pentagon spokesman John F. Kirby released a succinct statement: “US Special Operations forces under the control of US Central Command conducted a counter-terrorism mission in northwestern Syria tonight. The mission was successful. There were no American casualties. More information will be provided as it becomes available.”
Video of the scene on social media showed people extracting the bodies of at least nine men, women and children from the rubble of the badly damaged home, said Charles Lister, the director of the Washington-based Middle East Institute’s Syria and Countering Terrorism and Extremism Programs. , which monitored the aircraft tracking videos and websites.
To give evidence suggested that US counterfire on the house caused the damage, but a senior US military official said there was an explosion in the house not caused by US firepower, and more likely because the target of the heist blew itself up.
The scale, scope and duration of the battle suggested the target of the raid was likely a senior Qaeda figure, Mr Lister said. The fact that the United States risked sending commandos, not just carrying out air strikes, also suggested that the focus of the attack was on a senior figure.
US officials declined to identify what it called a “high-value” target pending a DNA analysis, but said the government could make an announcement as early as Thursday. The officials declined to comment on whether it was a senior regional Qaeda leader, or even the supreme leader of the terrorist group itself, Ayman al-Zawahri, which is reportedly located in the rugged border areas between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The White House was in an uproar Wednesday night over something secretive going on, and Pentagon officials were unusually closed on the details of the mission.
Indeed, the commando helicopter attack bore a resemblance to the October 2019 attack that culminated in the death of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. That raid took place not far from Thursday’s.
Mr Lister said the Atmeh area has overcrowded camps that Qaeda members use to hide among people displaced by the conflict.
Idlib province is home to many violent Islamist extremist groups, dominated by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, formerly the Nusra Front, which was previously linked to Al Qaeda. Syrian forces, backed by Iranian and Russian firepower, have targeted the group. Another prominent group is Hurras al-Din, a Qaeda affiliate.
Hurras al-Din emerged in early 2018 after several factions broke away from the Nusra Front, which has since publicly distanced itself from Al Qaeda’s overall leadership. Hurras al-Din is the successor to the Khorasan Group, a small but dangerous organization of hardened senior Qaeda operatives that Mr Zawahri sent to Syria to plan attacks against the West.
The province has been the scene of US airstrikes in recent months, but the pace of activity has lagged far behind the US-led coalition’s attacks on Islamic State remnants in northeastern Syria.
In early December, a US MQ-9 Reaper drone attacked a suspected senior Qaeda leader and planner in Idlib. But the initial assessment of the attack indicated that the drone’s missile hit both the Qaeda leader on a motorcycle and a Syrian family in a car close to the motorcycle.
The Qaeda leader was killed; members of the Syrian family were injured.
The Army’s Central Command opened an investigation into the incident, the results of which have not yet been made public.
“We abhor the loss of innocent lives and take every possible measure to prevent them,” said Capt. Bill Urban, the chief spokesman for Central Command, at the time. “The possibility of a civilian casualty was immediately self-reported to US Central Command. We are launching a full investigation into the allegations and will release the results if necessary.”
Two months earlier, in October, an MQ-9 launched an airstrike in northwestern Syria, killing a senior Qaeda leader, Abdul Hamid al-Matar, according to military officials.
And on Sept. 20, a US airstrike near Idlib killed a Qaeda leader, Salim Abu Ahmad, US military officials said.
Evan Hill reporting contributed.