ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The United States army said on Friday that it carried out a raid to kill a suspected senior Islamic State (ISIS) leader in Syria. Iraq previously announced the death in what it said was a joint operation with the US-led coalition, but the army’s statement did not acknowledge an Iraqi role.
"Omar Abdul Qader was an ISIS member actively seeking to attack the United States. His death disrupts the terrorist organization’s ability to plot and carry out future attacks threatening Americans and our partners," said US Central Command, which oversees American troops in the Middle East.
CENTCOM said that the suspect "posed a threat to the U.S. homeland."
“We will not yield in our pursuit of terrorists seeking to attack the United States, our forces, or allies and partners abroad,” said CENTCOM commander Admiral Brad Cooper. “I commend the efforts of our skilled warfighters and all who supported them during the mission.”
The Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service (ICTS) announced earlier on Friday that they had killed "one of the most prominent leaders" of ISIS in a joint operation with the US-led global coalition inside Syria.
The ICTS said that Omar Abdul Qader Bassam, also known as Abdul Rahman al-Halabi, was directly involved in the 2013 bombing of the Iranian embassy in Lebanon that killed 23 people and injured 160 others.
ISIS rose to power and seized swathes of Iraqi and Syrian land in 2014, declaring a so-called caliphate. The group was declared territorially defeated in Syria in 2019, two years after its defeat in Iraq. Despite its military defeat, it continues to pose security risks, particularly in the vast eastern deserts of Syria.