US Raid Leads to ISIS Leader & Civilian Deaths

🌍 An overnight US special forces raid on a building in northwestern Syria resulted in the death of ISIS’ leader, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, and at least thirteen others, including six children and four women.

• A notorious militant known as "the Destroyer", al-Qurayshi became ISIS’ leader in 2019, following the death of his predecessor Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
• Al-Qurayshi detonated a suicide bomb on the third floor of the building as US forces closed in, killing himself, his wife, and their two children. An eyewitness told Al Jazeera there was another suicide bomber in the building, this one a woman.
• President Biden said yesterday the choice to use Special Forces was made to minimize civilian casualties. Officials didn’t say how many civilians were killed but maintained that all casualties were the result of actions by al-Qurayshi and his associates.

+Zoom out: Last week, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin issued a directive ordering military leaders to put together an action plan to protect civilians from harm in drone attacks and other combat operations.

A December investigation by the New York Times concluded, based on a trove of confidential Pentagon documents, that US air wars in the Middle East have been marked by “deeply flawed intelligence” and “faulty targeting” that has resulted in the deaths of more than 1,000 civilians over the last decade.

+Go deeper: From the Left | From the Right