By — Andrew Mach Andrew Mach Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/u-s-special-forces-kill-senior-isis-commander-syria-raid Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter U.S. special forces kill senior ISIS commander in Syria raid World May 16, 2015 12:50 PM EDT U.S. special forces killed a senior Islamic State commander during a raid overnight Friday in eastern Syria, the Pentagon said Saturday. The White House identified the militant as Abu Sayyaf and said commandos also captured his wife, Umm Sayyaf, and freed a young Yazidi woman who appears to have been held as a slave by the couple. While the raid involved a “fairly intense firefight,” including hand-to-hand combat, according to the Associated Press, no U.S. forces were killed or injured in the operation, National Security Council Spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said Saturday. Sayyaf was a senior ISIS leader who was involved in the terrorist organization’s military activity and oversaw its illicit oil and gas operations, which allowed the group “to carry out their brutal tactics and oppress thousands of innocent civilians,” the NSC said in a statement. Umm Sayyaf is currently in U.S. military detention in Iraq, and officials said they intend to reunite the Yazidi woman with her family as soon as possible. “We suspect that Umm Sayyaf is a member of ISIL, played an important role in ISIL’s terrorist activities, and may have been complicit in the enslavement of the young woman rescued last night,” Meehan said. During the raid, officials said they also confiscated “reams” of ISIS computer data, according to news reports. The U.S. estimates that about a dozen ISIS fighters were killed but said no civilians were wounded, the AP reported. A U.S. defense officials said the raid was conducted by a team of Army Delta commandos who flew from Iraq into eastern Syria aboard V-22 Osprey aircraft and Blackhawk helicopters, the AP reported. While U.S. forces have been striking ISIS militants in Syria for months, this was only the second time troops have carried out a ground raid, the AP reported. The first operation was aimed at rescuing Americans held hostage, but was unsuccessful. By — Andrew Mach Andrew Mach Andrew Mach is a former Digital Editor for PBS NewsHour in New York City, where he manages the online editorial direction of the national broadcast's weekend edition. Formerly, Mach was a news editor and staff writer for NBC News. He's also written for the Christian Science Monitor in Boston and had stints at ABC News, the Washington Post and German network ZDF in Berlin, in addition to reporting for an investigative journalism project in Phoenix. Mach was a recipient of the 2016 Kiplinger Fellowship, the 2015 RIAS German/American Exchange fellowship by the Radio Television Digital News Foundation and the 2012 Berlin Capital Program Fulbright. He attended the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and is a native of Aberdeen, South Dakota. @andrewjmach
U.S. special forces killed a senior Islamic State commander during a raid overnight Friday in eastern Syria, the Pentagon said Saturday. The White House identified the militant as Abu Sayyaf and said commandos also captured his wife, Umm Sayyaf, and freed a young Yazidi woman who appears to have been held as a slave by the couple. While the raid involved a “fairly intense firefight,” including hand-to-hand combat, according to the Associated Press, no U.S. forces were killed or injured in the operation, National Security Council Spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said Saturday. Sayyaf was a senior ISIS leader who was involved in the terrorist organization’s military activity and oversaw its illicit oil and gas operations, which allowed the group “to carry out their brutal tactics and oppress thousands of innocent civilians,” the NSC said in a statement. Umm Sayyaf is currently in U.S. military detention in Iraq, and officials said they intend to reunite the Yazidi woman with her family as soon as possible. “We suspect that Umm Sayyaf is a member of ISIL, played an important role in ISIL’s terrorist activities, and may have been complicit in the enslavement of the young woman rescued last night,” Meehan said. During the raid, officials said they also confiscated “reams” of ISIS computer data, according to news reports. The U.S. estimates that about a dozen ISIS fighters were killed but said no civilians were wounded, the AP reported. A U.S. defense officials said the raid was conducted by a team of Army Delta commandos who flew from Iraq into eastern Syria aboard V-22 Osprey aircraft and Blackhawk helicopters, the AP reported. While U.S. forces have been striking ISIS militants in Syria for months, this was only the second time troops have carried out a ground raid, the AP reported. The first operation was aimed at rescuing Americans held hostage, but was unsuccessful.