American and Iraqi forces killed the head of the Islamic State group’s international operations in an early morning raid in Syria.
The Iraqi Counterterrorism Service announced that U.S. troops and its forces carried out a dawn raid inside Syria that resulted in the death of Omar Abdul Qader, ISIS’s head of operations and external security. The operation is the latest in the past three months to kill or capture top members of the terror group still active inside Syria.
Neither the U.S. nor Iraq offered details on the raid except that it was an “air raid.” It’s unclear if anyone else was killed during the operation. Qader, also known as Abdul Rahman Al-Halabi, was involved in the 2013 bombing of the Iranian embassy in Lebanon — which killed 23 people — and multiple terror plots in Europe and the United States, the Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service said, per the Kurdish news outlet Rudaw.
U.S. Central Command’s announcement was more sparse on details and did not mention Iraqi involvement in the operation. The exact location of the raid in Syria was not disclosed. American forces, along with Iraqi and Syrian Democratic Forces partners, have conducted several anti-ISIS operations near the Iraq-Syria border over the last year.
“Omar Abdul Qader was an ISIS member actively seeking to attack the United States,” the CENTCOM release said. “His death disrupts the terrorist organization’s ability to plot and carry out future attacks threatening Americans and our partners.”
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Since last fall, the U.S. and local partners have carried out several waves of high-profile raids and airstrikes targeting ISIS training camps and leadership. Those include some inside central Syria in December, after the fall of long-time dictator Bashar al-Assad. This summer, U.S. forces targeted several ISIS leaders, including the group’s chief financier.
The operation happened a week after Adm. Brad Cooper, head of CENTCOM, met with new Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa in Damascus for a discussion on security. Last month, the U.S. withdrew from Mission Support Site Euphrates, one of its bases inside Syria. In Iraq, American forces are shrinking their footprint as part of a previously announced drawdown plan with the Iraqi government. The first phase of that is set to end this month.
