The United States eradicated prominent jihadi leaders or senior officials and captured others in 2022. US operations against ISIS and al Qaeda were undertaken in Syria. One was carried out in Afghanistan. In July 2022, President Biden commanded the operations to send “a powerful message to all terrorists who endanger Peace.” He pledged that the US would be “relentless” in obtaining others “to justice.”
On February 2022, US Special Operations Forces projected a raid that led to the demise of ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim al Hashimi al Qurayshi, also understood as Hajji Abdullah. US intelligence followed Qurayshi to rebel-held Idlib province in northwestern Syria. Before beginning on February 3, helicopters held some two dozen commandos in the town of Atmeh, near the boundary with Turkey.
US-led coalition forces carried out in June 2022 nighttime attack that led to the capture of ISIS superior Hani Ahmed al Kurdi in Syria’s northern province of Aleppo. Al Kurdi was comprehended to be an experienced bomb engineer and operational planner for ISIS. Local sources proclaimed that two helicopters dismounted joining troops in the nearby village of al Humayra; once the troops reached, they encountered a seven-minute firefight before grabbing al-Kurdi. US Central Command (CENTCOM) noted that the operation was a triumph and that no civilians were harmed during the mission.
US forces undertook an airstrike in Syria’s northwest Idlib province that extinguished Abu Hamzah al Yemeni, a senior leader of the al Qaeda-aligned group, Hurras al-Din. Al Qaeda supporters established Hurras al-Din in 2018. A statement administered by US Central Command stated that Abu Hamzah al Yemeni was travelling on a motorcycle at the time of the strike.
On July 31 a CIA drone shot two missiles and killed Ayman al Zawahiri, the head of al Qaeda, in downtown Kabul, Afghanistan. Zawahiri was positioned on the balcony of a house he had been living in with his family. US forces also killed Wahid al Shammri and an associate in a nighttime helicopter attack near Qamishli in northeastern Syria. Shammri had smuggled fighters, weapons and money for ISIS.
Moreover, on October 6 Abu Hashum al Umawai, a deputy wali of ISIS Syria, and another senior official were killed. “This strike will lessen ISIS’s ability to destabilize the territory and strike at our forces and partners,” General Kurilla stated in a statement. No civilian or US personnel were wounded during the airstrike. Further, ISIS belatedly declared that its leader, Abu al Hassan al Hashimi al Qurayshi, had been killed in action but did not provide particulars. CENTCOM, however, stated that The Free Syrian Army, a Turkish-backed group that objected to the Assad regime, had shot dead the caliph in the Syrian province of Dar’a in mid-October. ISIS designated a new leader, Abu al Husayn al Husayni al Qurayshi.
Furthermore, at the end of the year, US forces destroyed two ISIS officials in an early morning helicopter attack in eastern Syria. CENTCOM only called one of the two, Anas, a Syria Province official. “ISIS continues to convey a threat to the security and stability of the region,” said Joe Buccino, a CENTCOM representative. “The death of these ISIS officials will disrupt the terrorist organization’s ability to further plot and carry out destabilizing attacks in the Middle East.” CENTCOM also reported the capture of six ISIS detectives, including a Syria Province official known as al Zubaydi. “These partnered operations reaffirm CENTCOM’s inflexible commitment to the region and the enduring defeat of ISIS,” said General Kurilla.
