A key ISIS commander and an estimated dozen ISIS fighters were killed by United States Army commandos in Syria on Friday. No Americans were killed or wounded during the raid.
The commander, Abu Sayyaf, oversaw the Islamic State’s illicit oil and financial operations, was involved with the group’s military operations, and had apparently enslaved a young Yazidi woman who was rescued by the U.S. forces.
Via the AP:
In a rare ground attack deep into Syria, U.S. Army commandos killed a man described as the Islamic State’s head of oil operations, captured his wife and rescued a woman whom American officials said was enslaved.
A team of Delta Force commandos slipped across the border from Iraq under cover of darkness Saturday aboard Black Hawk helicopters and V-22 Osprey aircraft, according to a U.S. defense official knowledgeable about details of the raid. The official was not authorized to discuss the operation publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The Americans intended to capture a militant identified by U.S. officials as Abu Sayyaf. When they arrived at his location, a multi-story building, they met stiff resistance, the U.S. official said, and a firefight ensued, resulting in bullet-hole damage to the U.S. aircraft.
Abu Sayyaf was killed, along with an estimated dozen IS fighters, U.S. officials said. No American was killed or wounded.
The raid is said to have involved hand-to-hand combat, with the cowardly jihadists using women and children as human shields. None of the women and children were injured because the U.S. Delta team managed to separate the women and children from Sayyaf and killed the terror leader (and about a dozen jihadists) when he resisted.
“It was a real firefight — a no kidding old school firefight,” a senior defense official told Fox News.
Ancient Assyrian texts and other priceless artifacts were recovered as well as what the defense official called a “treasure trove” of intelligence materials, such as cell phones, laptops and documents.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQvKqwGHUB4
Now if we could just multiply this operation by about 1000, we could maybe start getting somewhere in the fight against ISIS.
Vocativ reporters have been watching ISIS-supporting social media across Syria in the wake of the strike for reactions to the raid:
“If they took Abu Sayyaf, we will take Obama,” one ISIS supporter posted in the hours after the raid, which took place near the eastern Syrian city of al-Amr.
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