DAMASCUS (Dispatches) – At least 13 people were killed in a U.S. raid in Syria’s northwestern province of Idlib before daybreak on Thursday, a war monitor reported.
Four children and three women were among those killed by the U.S. forces which included an airdrop of forces and aerial targeting by warplanes in the province, according to the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The Britain-based watch group said the military operation took place near the town of Atme in the countryside of Idlib, just east of the border with Turkey.
Citing local sources, the Doha-based Al Jazeera broadcaster on Thursday put the toll at 13 people, including six children and four women, in the last militant-held stronghold after almost 11 years of foreign-backed war on Syria.
One resident said emergency rescuers pulled out the bodies of the victims from the rubble of a multi-story building.
“We woke up at 1 a.m. to the sound of helicopters … and then at around 3 a.m. we heard a barrage of attacks,” Abu Fahed al-Homsi, a displaced Syrian who lives a block away from the target, told Al Jazeera on Thursday.
“We saw a house that was targeted and damaged roads, but we still have no idea what was going on.”
Heavy gunfire was also heard during the raid, which according to Reuters was believed to have targeted a suspected Al-Qaeda-affiliated militant, but there was no other information on his identity and fate.
In a statement, the Pentagon said the “mission was successful,” without providing details on who was the target of the assault.
“U.S. Special Operations forces under the control of U.S. Central Command conducted a counterterrorism mission this evening in northwest Syria. The mission was successful,” said Pentagon spokesman John Kirby.
U.S. President Joe Biden later in the day claimed that a Daesh leader, identified as Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, was killed in the raid.
An unidentified U.S. official also said the purported Daesh leader blew himself and his family, including children, up before being taken in by the U.S. troops.