US commandos kill top IS leader in Syria raid

BEIRUT—US commandos killed a senior Islamic State (IS) group leader in a nighttime raid into Syria, American officials said on Saturday, as IS jihadists seized the northern part of Syria’s ancient desert city of Palmyra.

Across the border, IS battled Iraqi Army reinforcements in the strategic western city of Ramadi, while Turkey said its Armed Forces had shot down a Syrian helicopter that had violated its airspace.

US President Barack Obama approved the special forces raid on al-Omar in east Syria on Friday night to capture senior IS leader Abu Sayyaf and his wife Umm Sayyaf, the government said.

The bold operation, with elite commandos striking at IS’ inner circle, was a rare use of “boots on the ground” by the United States, which has fought the jihadists almost entirely from the air.

White House National Security spokesperson Bernadette Meehan said Abu Sayyaf, who played a senior role in IS’ lucrative oil operations, “was killed when he engaged US forces” while his wife was being held in detention in Iraq.

Al-Omar, one of the largest oil fields in Syria, is in oil-rich Deir ez-Zor province, much of which is controlled by IS extremists.

Meehan said US forces based out of Iraq conducted the raid “with the full consent” of the Iraqi authorities.

US troops killed “about a dozen” militants in a gun battle before fighting them “at very close quarters,” the official said.

Fighters have also taken over the northern neighborhoods of the Syrian city of Palmyra following an assault on the ancient metropolis that has seen them execute 49 people in two days, a monitoring group said.