U.S. Confirms Raid Against ISIS in Syria Near Syrian, Russian Frontlines

The U.S. military has confirmed to Newsweek that it has conducted a raid against a senior official of the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) in northeast Syria near front lines held by the country's government and Russia.

A separate U.S. operation hours later was said to have killed two more senior officials.

The first confirmation of the back-to-back actions came to via U.S. Central Command spokesperson Army Colonel Joe Buccino who said in a statement shared with Newsweek Thursday that, "Last night, CENTCOM forces conducted a raid in northeast Syria targeting a senior ISIS official." He said more information would be coming shortly.

The target of the operation was then later identified in a follow-up CENTCOM statement as "Rakkan Wahid al-Shammri, an ISIS official known to facilitate the smuggling of weapons and fighters to support ISIS operations."

The statement said that Shammari had been killed during the helicopter raid and one of his associates was wounded. Two additional associates were said to have been taken alive. No casualties were reported among U.S. personnel or civilians, according to CENTCOM.

"USCENTCOM is committed to our allies and partners in the enduring defeat of ISIS," Buccino was quoted as saying.

A second CENTCOM statement was later issued detailing another U.S. operation, involving "a successful airstrike in northern Syria, killing both Abu-Hashum al-Umawi, a deputy Wali of Syria, and another senior ISIS official associated with him."

Once again it was assessed that no U.S. personnel or civilians were harmed in the operation.

"This strike will degrade ISIS' ability to destabilize the region and strike at our forces and partners," CENTCOM commander Army General Erik Kurilla was cited as saying. "Our forces remain in the region to ensure the enduring defeat of ISIS."

Syrian state-run media previously made note of initial U.S. operations in the area, just south of the city of Qamishli, where Russian and Syrian forces also operate.

Citing "reliable sources," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a United Kingdom-based monitor with ties to Syria's exiled opposition also reported on the raid, saying an unidentified man was killed during a U.S. airdrop near the village of Moluk Sarray. The monitor reported that two families along with the head of a local security headquarters were arrested during the operation, which was said to have taken place about 10 miles south of of Qamishli.

The monitor then claimed that the person killed in the operation was of Iraqi nationality and likely a senior member of ISIS who was killed after refusing to surrender to U.S. forces.

The U.S. and Russia maintain a deconfliction line for avoiding incidents in their overlapping areas of control in the country, though it is not clear if it was activated in this instance. Both countries have conducted operations against ISIS in Syria, though Washington has backed the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, while Moscow has supported the Syrian armed forces.

The Syrian government, which is backed by both Russia and Iran, considers U.S. military activities in Syria to be illegal because they are not coordinated through central authorities in Damascus, led by President Bashar al-Assad. Washington severed ties with Assad's administration in 2011, accusing him of human rights abuses as mass protests were met with a crackdown and unrest devolved into civil war that has led to the rise of various militant groups, including Al-Qaeda and ISIS, in Syria.

While the U.S. military maintains a regular presence in northeastern Syria, raids here are rare. The last two Special Operations Forces operations that resulted in the deaths of ISIS leaders took place in the northwestern rebel-held province of Idlib.

The deputy head of Russia's Center for Reconciliation of the Opposing Sides in Syria recently accused U.S. forces of conducting unauthorized operations in Syrian airspace, disrupting Syrian and Russian operations.

"The U.S.-led, so-called international anti-terrorist coalition keeps sending unmanned aerial vehicles, fitted with combat gear, to perform unauthorized flights in the airspace of the Syrian Arab Republic," Major General Oleg Yegorov told reporters Tuesday, according to the state-run TASS Russian News Agency.

He said that, on Monday, the Russian An-26 military-transport plane "had to dodge a collision with US-made MQ-9 and MQ-1 unmanned aerial vehicles that followed its route in the north of Syria."

On Wednesday, he alleged that "U.S.-backed illegal armed formations are boosting their activity," including by shelling Syrian government positions. He also pointed to an alleged incident in which rebels operating from a U.S.-held desert garrison in the southeastern Al-Tanf region attempted to break out of the exclusion zone but were driven back by Syrian forces.

Russian warplanes conducted strikes in Syria's vast southeastern desert region in August, targeting a rebel group that the Russian Defense Ministry alleged was backed by the U.S.

U.S. troops operating in the southwest and, more recently, northeast, have also come under attack by rockets and drones launched by militias aligned with Iran. The U.S. has conducted several strikes targeting these groups in eastern Syria, drawing the ire of Tehran, Moscow and Damascus.

The latest U.S. action came as relations between Washington and Moscow were already severely strained as a result of Russia's ongoing war in Ukraine. Syria was the first U.N. member state to join Russia in recognizing the independence of the pro-Moscow separatist Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics that, along with the partially occupied Ukrainian regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, have since been poised for full annexation by Russia in the wake of internationally unrecognized referendums held late last month.

This is a developing news story. More information will be added as it becomes available.