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President Joe Biden said that top ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi detonated an explosive, killing himself and four family members during a U.S. raid in Syria.

“Last night’s operation took a major terrorist leader off the battlefield. And sent a strong message to terrorists around the world: ‘We will come after you and find you,'” Biden said from the White House on Thursday.

“You all remember the gut-wrenching stories of the mass slaughters that wiped out entire villages. Thousands of women and young girls sold into slavery. Rape as a weapon of war. Thanks to our troops, this horrible terrorist leader is no more,” he continued.

“This operation is a testament to America’s reach and capability to take out terrorist threats no matter where they try to hide anywhere in the world,” the president added. “I’m determined to protect the American people from terrorist threats, and I’ll take decisive action to protect this country.”

Officials declared that the “mission was successful,” and there were no U.S. casualties. First responders who reached the scene minutes after the Special Operations forces left said they recovered the bodies of 13 people, including six children and four women.

Officials would not say how many civilians were killed during the operation but insisted that all casualties resulted from actions by al-Qurayshi and his associate.

Earlier Thursday, a senior Biden administration official said that al-Qurayshi “exploded a bomb that killed him and members of his own family, including women and children” at the beginning of the U.S. operation.

During his remarks, Biden said that al-Qurayshi “in a final act of desperate cowardice, with no regard to the lives of his own family or others in the building, he chose to blow himself up … rather than face justice for the crimes he’s committed.”

According to U.S. officials who spoke to reporters on the condition of anonymity, U.S. forces announced their presence and asked the civilians living on the first floor of the three-story house to evacuate.

Eight children were successfully removed from the site before al-Qurayshi detonated an explosive on the top floor, killing himself and his family in a blast “so large that it blew bodies outside of the house and into surrounding areas.”

An unnamed ISIS lieutenant and his wife barricaded themselves on the second floor of the building and were killed in a firefight with U.S. forces.

A U.S. official described the operation as “extraordinarily complex” due to the presence of civilian families living in the building, as well as the fact that al-Qurayshi ran ISIS through couriers without ever leaving his home.

Biden gave his final approval for the raid on Tuesday morning and monitored the operation from the Situation Room with Vice President Kamala Harris, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, and other top national security officials.

Officials believe that eliminating al-Qurayshi, whom they described as one of the group’s few remaining “legacy leaders,” will be a major blow to ISIS.

The raid and reports of civilian casualties come less than a week after the Pentagon issued a directive to mitigate the number of innocent people killed during U.S. military operations.

Source:

ISIS Leader Killed During U.S. Raid in Syria, Biden Says