Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

top

World

US commandos kill top IS leader in Syria raid

– ‘Hand-to-hand combat’ –

US troops killed “about a dozen” militants in a gun battle before fighting them “at very close quarters… there was hand-to-hand combat,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Damascus, which Washington did not say it consulted, said the Syrian army had killed IS’s “oil minister” in Al-Omar, naming him as Abu al-Taym al-Saudi. A Syrian military source would not confirm if this was another man or Abu Sayyaf.

News of the raid comes the day after Washington authorised sending weapons to the Iraqi military after IS made key territorial gains, seizing a government compound in the strategic Iraqi city of Ramadi.

Fighters have also taken over the northern neighbourhoods of the Syrian city of Palmyra following an assault on the ancient metropolis that has seen them execute 49 people in two days, a monitoring group said.

“IS advanced and took control of most of northern Palmyra, and there are fierce clashes happening now,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The head of Syria’s antiquities department, Mamoum Abdulkarim, 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, adding that IS “will blow everything up. They will destroy everything” if they enter the site.

Fearing the destruction of Palmyra, known as the “pearl of the desert,” UNESCO has called on the UN Security Council to act to save one of the Middle East’s historic treasures.

Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.

About The Author

Pages: 1 2 3

Comments
Advertisement

More on Capital News