US Forces Kill High Ranking ISIS Leader Hamza al-Homsi In An Operation In Syria
On Friday, 17 February, US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced that the US military, in collaboration with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), conducted a raid on ISIS targets in northern Syria. According to CENTCOM’s statement, Hamza al-Homsi, a commander of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), was targeted in the helicopter raid in Syria. The authorities, who did not specify where the raid occurred, stated that Hamza al-Homsi was killed as a result of the operation, and that an explosion injured four American soldiers and a military working dog.
According to a US official who spoke to CBS News about the raid, Hamza al-Homsi detonated a suicide vest during the operation, which led to the explosion that injured four American soldiers and a working dog. According to CENTCOM, the US personnel who were injured during the operation are being treated at a US medical facility in Iraq. Colonel Joe Buccino, USCENTCOM Communications Director, stated that the injured soldiers are in good condition and will be transferred to a US military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, in the near future. Joe Buccino also stated that, with the exception of Hamza al-Homsi, no ISIS fighters were killed or captured during the operation, and that no SDF forces or civilians were injured other than the four American soldiers.
US Central Command (CENTCOM) reported that a second operation aimed at weakening ISIS operations in Syria was carried out in the early morning hours of 18 February, just hours after the first raid was announced. As in the first operation, Batar, an ISIS Syria Province official involved in planning attacks against SDF-protected detention centers and the manufacturing of improvised explosive devices, was captured in a helicopter raid in eastern Syria in collaboration with US forces and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). According to the CENTCOM statement, no civilians, SDF, or US forces were killed or injured during the operation.
Special Operations Forces under the command of CENTCOM’s previously carried out operations in Syria to weaken ISIS operations, killing Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, one of ISIS’s leaders, in Idlib, Syria in October 2019, and Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi on February 3, 2021, in the town of Atme, Idlib in northwest Syria.