US-led Coalition Says it Detained Senior ISIS Leader in Syria

A US patrol in Qamishli in northeastern Syria. AFP
A US patrol in Qamishli in northeastern Syria. AFP
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US-led Coalition Says it Detained Senior ISIS Leader in Syria

A US patrol in Qamishli in northeastern Syria. AFP
A US patrol in Qamishli in northeastern Syria. AFP

The US-led coalition said it had detained a senior ISIS leader in Syria during an early-morning operation on Thursday.

The coalition conducts raids and strikes targeting members of the group, which has been waging insurgent attacks since its defeat on the battlefield three years ago.

"The detained individual was assessed to be an experienced bomb maker and facilitator who became one of the group’s top leaders in Syria," the statement said, adding no civilians were harmed during the operation nor aircraft damaged.

The coalition did not specify in what part of Syria Thursday's raid took place.

A spokesperson for a separate Turkish-backed Syrian group told Reuters earlier on Thursday that coalition forces had carried out a helicopter raid in the village of Al-Humaira just south of the Turkish border, the first operation of its kind in the area.

Major Youssef Hamoud, a spokesman for the Turkey-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) said US-made Chinook and Black Hawk helicopters were involved but said the exact circumstances were unclear at the time.

"This is the first (US) helicopter landing operation to happen" in areas under the SNA's control, he said.

A source in touch with opposition fighters in the area said clashes erupted during the operation.

United States special forces in February undertook a helicopter raid in Syria's Idlib province controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) that led to the death of ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim Al-Hashemi Al-Quraishi.

Quraishi had led the group since the death of its founder Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who was also killed when he detonated explosives during a US raid in 2019.



Hamas Releases Video of Two Israeli Hostages Alive in Gaza

 A picture taken near Israel's border with Gaza shows smoke billowing in the besieged Palestinian territory on May 8, 2025, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
A picture taken near Israel's border with Gaza shows smoke billowing in the besieged Palestinian territory on May 8, 2025, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
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Hamas Releases Video of Two Israeli Hostages Alive in Gaza

 A picture taken near Israel's border with Gaza shows smoke billowing in the besieged Palestinian territory on May 8, 2025, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
A picture taken near Israel's border with Gaza shows smoke billowing in the besieged Palestinian territory on May 8, 2025, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)

Hamas's armed wing released a video on Saturday showing two Israeli hostages alive in the Gaza Strip, with one of the two men calling to end the 19-month-long war.

Israeli media identified the pair in the undated video as Elkana Bohbot and Yosef Haim Ohana, who were kidnapped during Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the war.

The three-minute video released by Hamas's Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades shows one of the hostages, identified by media as 36-year-old Bohbot, visibly weak and lying on the floor wrapped in a blanket.

Bohbot, a Colombian-Israeli, was seen bound and injured in the face in video footage from the day of the Hamas attack. After a video of him was released last month, his family said they were "extremely concerned" about his health.

The second hostage, said to be Ohana, 24, speaks in Hebrew in the video, urging the Israeli government to end the war in Gaza and secure the release of all remaining captives -- a similar message to statements made by other hostages, likely under duress, in previous videos released by Hamas.

Bohbot and Ohana, both abducted by Palestinian gunmen from the site of a music festival, are among 58 hostages held in Gaza since the 2023 attack, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

Hamas also holds the remains of an Israeli soldier killed in a 2014 war.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that the fate of three hostages presumed alive was unclear, without naming them.

"We know with certainty that 21 hostages are alive... and there are three others whose status, sadly, we do not know," Netanyahu said in a video shared on his Telegram channel.

Israel resumed its military offensive across the Gaza Strip on March 18, after a two-month truce that saw the release of dozens of hostages.

Since the ceasefire collapsed, Hamas has released several videos of hostages, including of the two appearing in Saturday's video.

Israel says the renewed offensive aims to force Hamas to free the remaining captives, although critics charge that it puts them in mortal danger.

Hamas's October 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Saturday that at least 2,701 people have been killed since Israel resumed its campaign in Gaza, bringing the overall death toll since the war broke out to 52,810.