The U.S. military said Friday a helicopter raid led by its forces in northeast Syria left senior ISIS leader Hamza al-Homsi dead and four American service members and a working dog wounded.
A U.S. official said the four Americans and the dog were injured when Homsi detonated a suicide vest. The servicemembers are being flown to Landstuhl in Germany.
The military said in its brief statement that the operation was conducted Thursday night in partnership with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which is allied with the U.S. Homsi oversaw ISIS’ terrorist network in eastern Syria, according to U.S. Centcom spokesman Col. Joe Buccino. The Americans and the dog are reported to be in stable condition, Buccino said.
No other ISIS fighters were killed or captured, according To Buccino, and no SDF forces were injured. Initial assessments indicate that there were no civilians who were killed or injured in the operation.
The U.S. military did not say in which part of northeast Syria the raid was conducted.
Despite their defeat in Syria in March 2019, ISIS sleeper cells still conduct attacks around Syria and Iraq where they once declared a “caliphate.”
Joint operations between the U.S. military and SDF fighters are common in northeast and eastern Syria along the border with Iraq.
The statement said the service members and working dog are receiving treatment in a U.S. medical facility in neighboring Iraq.
The U.S. military killed two ISIS leaders in Syria over the past few years.
In February 2021, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, was killed in a U.S. raid in northwest Syria. ISIS founder Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was hunted down by the Americans in a raid in October 2019.
In October, the leader of ISIS, Abu al-Hassan al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, was killed in battle with Syrian rebels in southern Syria.
David Martin and William Patterson contributed to this report.
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