US Says ISIS Commander Killed, Troops Wounded in NE Syria Raid

US soldiers during a combined joint patrol in Manbij, Syria, November 1, 2018. (US Army/Handout via Reuters)
US soldiers during a combined joint patrol in Manbij, Syria, November 1, 2018. (US Army/Handout via Reuters)
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US Says ISIS Commander Killed, Troops Wounded in NE Syria Raid

US soldiers during a combined joint patrol in Manbij, Syria, November 1, 2018. (US Army/Handout via Reuters)
US soldiers during a combined joint patrol in Manbij, Syria, November 1, 2018. (US Army/Handout via Reuters)

The US military said Friday a helicopter raid led by its forces in northeast Syria left a senior leader with the ISIS group dead and four American service members wounded.

The military added in the short statement that the operation was conducted Thursday night in partnership with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces which is allied with the US.

It added that “an explosion on target resulted in four US service members and one working dog wounded.” It did not say in which part of northeast Syria the raid was conducted.

It identified the killed ISIS commander as Hamza al-Homsi.

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 US 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 US medical facility in neighboring Iraq.

The US 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 US 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 opposition fighters in southern Syria.



Hundreds of Thousands at Risk in Sudan's El-Fasher, Says UN

Internally displaced women wait in a queue to collect aid from a group at a camp in Gadaref on May 12, 2024. (AFP)
Internally displaced women wait in a queue to collect aid from a group at a camp in Gadaref on May 12, 2024. (AFP)
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Hundreds of Thousands at Risk in Sudan's El-Fasher, Says UN

Internally displaced women wait in a queue to collect aid from a group at a camp in Gadaref on May 12, 2024. (AFP)
Internally displaced women wait in a queue to collect aid from a group at a camp in Gadaref on May 12, 2024. (AFP)

Senior United Nations officials warned on Wednesday that hundreds of thousands of lives are at risk in the besieged Sudanese town of El-Fasher, amid signs that the fighting could soon escalate.

El-Fasher is one of five state capitals in Sudan's western Darfur region and the only one not in the hands of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), who have been battling the regular army since April 2023.

The United Nations says the war across much of Sudan has created the world's largest displacement crisis, with millions uprooted, and has led to famine at a displacement camp near El-Fasher, AFP reported.

"Hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped in El-Fasher are now at risk of the consequences of mass violence," Martha Pobee, the UN's Assistant Secretary-General for Africa, told the UN Security Council.

"As fighting engulfs the city, it has further exposed an extremely vulnerable population, including internally displaced persons living in large camps near El-Fasher. This violence has also affected health care facilities."

Darfur has seen some of the war's worst atrocities, and the RSF has besieged El-Fasher since May.

Sudan's war has already killed tens of thousands of people, with some estimates as high as 150,000.

"Civilians, especially women and children, have been hit," said the UN's Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Joyce Msuya.

"Civilian sites and infrastructure, including hospitals and internally displaced persons camps have been hit. The lives of hundreds of thousands of people, including more than 700,000 internally displaced people in and around El-Fasher, are at immediate threat.

"Our concern is mounting as we receive reports of intense shelling of central and western parts of El-Fasher and deployment of additional forces."

Close to 1.7 million people in the north Darfur region are facing acute food insecurity, she added.

"We are therefore horrified by signs that the fighting will intensify as the rainy season draws to a close in the coming months," Msuya said.

Independent UN experts earlier this month appealed for the quick deployment of an "impartial force" in Sudan for civilian protection.