US commandos killed a senior Islamic State group leader in a nighttime raid into Syria, US officials said on Saturday, as the Muslim extremists seized the northern part of Syria’s ancient desert city of Palmyra.
Across the border, the Islamic State 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 Islamic State leader Abu Sayyaf and his wife Umm Sayyaf, the US government said.
The bold operation, with elite commandos striking at the Islamic State’s inner circle, was a rare use of “boots on the ground” by the US, which has fought the militants almost entirely from the air.
White House national security spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said Abu Sayyaf, who played a senior role in the Islamic State’s lucrative oil operations, “was killed when he engaged US forces.” His wife was being held in military detention in Iraq, while a young Yezidi woman, who appears to have been held as a slave by the couple, has been freed.
Al-Omar, one of the largest oilfields in Syria, is in oil-rich Deir Ezzor Governorate, much of which is controlled by extremists.
US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter called the operation a “significant blow” to the Islamic State, while Adam Schiff, a Democrat on the US House of Representatives intelligence committee, said US attacks “have put increasing pressure on the economics undergirding the terrorist organization.”
Meehan said US forces based out of Iraq conducted the raid “with the full consent” of the Iraqi authorities. They suffered no casualties, officials said, without giving details on the number involved.
Members of the US’ elite Delta special operations unit descended on Sayyaf’s compound in Black Hawk helicopters and Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft, a defense official told reporters.
US troops killed “about a dozen” militants in a gun battle before fighting them “at very close quarters... there was hand-to-hand combat,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Damascus, which Washington did not say it consulted, said the Syrian army had killed the Islamic State’s “oil minister” in al-Omar, naming him as Abu al-Taym al-Saudi. A Syrian military source would not confirm if this was a reference to another man or Abu Sayyaf.
News of the raid comes the day after Washington authorized sending weapons to the Iraqi military after the Islamic State made key territorial gains, seizing a government compound in the strategic Iraqi city of Ramadi.
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.
“IS advanced and took control of most of northern Palmyra, and there are fierce clashes happening now,” Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel Rahman said.
The head of Syria’s antiquities department, Mamoum Abdulkarim, voiced extreme concern for the UNESCO world heritage site located to Palmyra’s southwest.
“I am living in a state of terror,” Abdulkarim told reporters, adding that the Islamic State “will blow everything up. They will destroy everything” if they enter the site.
Fearing the destruction of Palmyra, known as the “pearl of the desert,” UNESCO has called on the UN Security Council to act to save one of the Middle East’s historic treasures.
Meanwhile in northwest Syria, at least 48 civilians including nine children were killed on Saturday in regime air raids on Idlib Governorate, the observatory said.
It said the air strikes targeted the rebel-held city of Idlib and the towns of Saraqeb and Kafr Awid.
Separately, Turkey’s defense ministry said its armed forces shot down a Syrian helicopter that violated Turkish airspace on Saturday.
“A Syrian helicopter was downed that violated the border for a period of five minutes within a seven mile [11km] limit,” Turkish Minister of National Defense Ismet Yilmaz said, quoted by the Dogan news agency.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told Turkish television channel Star TV the episode served to show Syrian President Bashar al-Assad that “whoever you are, if you violate our border, you will be punished.” Syrian state television had earlier indicated the aircraft was a drone and vehemently denied it could have been a manned aircraft.
In Iraq, the Islamic State tightened its siege on the last government positions in Ramadi, the capital of the al-Anbar Governorate west of Baghdad, a day after they seized the city’s government headquarters.
Taking the city would be the group’s most important victory this year in Iraq, and would give it control of the capitals of two of its largest regions, along with Mosul in Nineveh Governorate.
Al-Anbar extends from the Syrian, Jordanian and Saudi Arabian borders to the gates of Baghdad.
Military reinforcements have been sent to Ramadi and other parts of al-Anbar, local officials said, and Iraq’s army and the US-led coalition have struck Islamic State positions in the area.
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