Building targeted by an anti-jihadist operation by US special forces in Atme, in northwestern Syria, where nine people including three civilians were killed, on February 3, 2022 (AFP / Aaref WATAD)
US special forces were helicoptered before dawn Thursday in a region of northwestern Syria to capture wanted jihadist leaders, a rare operation of its kind which left thirteen dead, including women and children, according to an NGO.
“The mission was a success” and there were no casualties among US forces, the Pentagon said of the operation against a building in Atme in Idleb province. He did not provide any further details.
This is the largest operation by US forces in Syria since the death in October 2019 of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group, killed in a raid in the Idleb region, which escapes the control of the Syrian power, indicated the director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH), Rami Abdel Rahmane.
According to the OSDH, which relies on a vast network of sources in the country at war, the soldiers landed by helicopter near camps for displaced people in the locality of Atmé in the province of Idlib, largely controlled part by jihadists and rebels.
“U.S. Special Forces under the direction of U.S. Central Command conducted a counterterrorism mission overnight in northwestern Syria,” the Pentagon added in a statement. “Further information will be provided later.”
Map locating Atme in Syria ( AFP / )
The operation provoked clashes that lasted two hours, said the OSDH without being able to immediately specify the identities of the wanted jihadists.
“At least thirteen people, including four children and three women, were killed in the operation,” according to the NGO.
According to AFP correspondents on the spot, the American operation targeted a two-storey building in an area surrounded by trees. Part of the building was destroyed and the floor of the rooms was covered in blood. According to residents, senior jihadist leaders of the Al-Qaeda group were targeted.
– Evacuate the houses –
A body is evacuated by the Syrian civil defense after an anti-jihadist operation by American special forces in Atme, in the north-west of the country, which caused the death of nine people, including at least three civilians, on February 3, 2022 (AFP / Abdulaziz KETAZ)
Residents told AFP they heard shelling and gunfire. In an audio recording that has been circulating among the population and has been attributed to US forces, a person speaking Arabic asks women and children to evacuate homes in the targeted area.
According to experts, overcrowded camps in the Atme region, located in the north of the province of Idlib, serve as a base for jihadist leaders hiding among the displaced.
Part of the province of Idlib and parts of the neighboring provinces of Hama, Aleppo and Latakia are dominated by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the former Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda. Rebel groups and other jihadist formations such as the Houras al-Din group are also present there.
These factions have already been the target mainly of air raids by the Syrian regime, its Russian ally, but also by the international anti-jihadist coalition led by the United States and American special forces.
A young Syrian in the building targeted by an anti-jihadist operation by American special forces in Atmé, in northwestern Syria, where nine people including three civilians were killed, on February 3, 2022 (AFP / Muhammad HAJ KADOUR)
But helicopter operations remain very rare in Syria, where American troops are deployed as part of the anti-jihadist coalition.
Last December, US forces killed a senior Houras al-Din official in a drone attack.
– “Fallback base” –
This operation came a few days after the end of an IS assault on a prison held by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), dominated by the Kurds, in the Hassaké region (northeast).
A resident photographs the interior of a building targeted by a US special forces operation on February 3, 2022 in Atme, Syria (AFP / Muhammad HAJ KADOUR)
This assault was the most important offensive of the jihadist group since its territorial defeat in Syria in 2019 against the FDS aided by the international coalition. The attack on the prison and the fighting that followed left 373 dead, including 268 jihadists, 98 members of the Kurdish forces and seven civilians according to the OSDH.
IS has been driven out of its strongholds in Syria and Iraq but continues to carry out attacks in these two neighboring countries through sleeper cells.
“Al-Qaeda is using Syria as a fallback base to reconstitute itself, coordinate with its affiliates and plan operations abroad,” John Rigsbee, a spokesman for the US Army’s Central Command, said in late 2021. ).
The complex war in Syria, a fragmented country where different protagonists intervene, has killed around 500,000 people since 2011.