Senior ISIS militant killed in overnight raid into Syria by U.S. forces

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. defence 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-storey 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 ISIS fighters, U.S. officials said. No American was killed or wounded.

Before the sun had risen, the commandos flew back to Iraq where Abu Sayyaf’s wife, Umm Sayyaf, was being questioned in U.S. custody, officials said. The goal was to gain intelligence about ISIS operations and any information about hostages, including U.S. citizens, held by the group, according to Bernadette Meehan, spokeswoman for the U.S. National Security Council.

Abu Sayyaf was described by one official as the IS “emir of oil and gas,” although he also was targeted for his known association with the group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Despite the U.S. claims, much about the ISIS figure was in question. The name Abu Sayyaf has rarely been mentioned in Western reports about the extremist group and he is not known to be among terrorists for whom the U.S. has offered a bounty. The name was not known to counterterrorism officials who study ISIS and does not appear in reports compiled by think tanks and others examining the group’s hierarchy.

Saturday’s raid came as ISIS fighters have advanced in central and northeastern Syria. Activists said ISIS fighters pushed into Palmyra, home to famed 2,000-year-old ruins, after seizing an oilfield and taking control of the local water company.