OnPolitics: ISIS leader killed in overnight US military raid in Syria

Chelsey Cox and Amy Nakamura, USA TODAY
·4 min read
A Syrian man rides his motorcycle along damaged shops after an operation by the U.S. military in the Syrian village of Atmeh in Idlib province, Syria, Thursday, Feb. 3, 2022. U.S. special forces carried out what the Pentagon said was a successful, large-scale counterterrorism raid in northwestern Syria early Thursday. Local residents and activists said civilians were also among the dead.

Good afternoon, OnPolitics readers!

There's a lot of news happening around the world today, so let's dive in!

International terrorism charges against women are extremely rare, according to experts, because men tend to dominate the misogynistic groups such as al-Qaida, the lslamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS, and related groups in Pakistan, Afghanistan and elsewhere around the world.

But a dozen cases over the last decade of U.S. citizens or permanent residents revealed women shedding traditional caretaker roles to recruit fellow warriors, train others to use rifles and explosives, and even kill.

The latest incident involves Allison Elizabeth Fluke-Ekren, 42, a former teacher and resident of Kansas. She was charged May 15, 2019, with plotting bomb attacks in the U.S. and training an all-female battalion to fight for the Islamic State. The case remained sealed until she was caught and transferred to federal authorities in Virginia this past weekend.

Veteran counter-terrorism officials say that while Fluke-Ekren's case is unusual in terms of the senior operational rank she allegedly achieved in ISIS, women have played important roles in the international Islamic jihad movement.

It's Amy and Chelsey with today's top stories out of Washington.

ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi dies in U.S. military raid in Syria

Islamic State leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi was killed in an overnight U.S. military raid in Syria, President Joe Biden announced Thursday.

Al-Qurayshi detonated a bomb that killed himself and several other people, including his wife and children, as U.S. special operations forces approached with the intention of capturing him, Biden said.

First responders reported that 13 people were killed, including six children and four women. Senior administration officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity said those numbers don't match their assessment of casualties.

"Thanks to the bravery of our troops, this horrible terrorist leader is no more," Biden said at the White House.

Raid planned months ago: The raid took place overnight in northwest Syria, near the Turkish border, in the same region where the previous leader of the Islamic State group, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi died in 2019. Al-Qurayshi took over as head of the militant group days after al-Baghdadi blew himself up during a U.S. raid in the same area.

Biden said all U.S. forces involved in the operation returned. There were no U.S. casualties, officials said.

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Russia deep-fakes Ukraine assault?

Russia may use a doctored video depicting an attack on its forces stationed at the Ukrainian border as pretense to invade the vulnerable Eastern European country, U.S. intelligence officials said Thursday.

Senior officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said the video will likely feature graphic scenes with staged explosions, fake corpses, destroyed locations and military equipment and — to top it all off — hired actors to play mourners.

The planned skit is part of Russia's ongoing disinformation campaign to justify invading Ukraine in order to intimidate the North Atlantic Treaty Organization against spreading its influence eastward. U.S. officials confirmed last month that Russian operatives were already dispatched into eastern Ukraine to carry out acts of sabotage against Russian forces.

Want to know more?: NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the organization has now deployed more troops and military equipment to Russia's neighbor Belarus than at any time in the past 30 years ahead of the impending threat against Ukraine.

That's all for now, OnPolitics readers. The Beijing Olympics begin tomorrow. Could the Olympic games help improve relations between the U.S. and China? — Amy and Chelsey

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: ISIS leader killed in US military raid in Syria