WASHINGTON, Feb 8 : Two British Daesh militants known for their role in the torture and killings of Western hostages were captured by Syrian Kurdish fighters, two US officials said on Thursday.
The men were the last of a group of four militants known as the “Beatles,” for their English accents, to remain at large.
The two, whose capture was first reported by the New York Times, were identified as Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh.
A separate US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) had captured the two in early January in eastern Syria. The official said US forces in the area had been given access to the militants.
A US-led coalition has pushed Daesh out of most of the territory it controlled in Iraq and Syria, but its leader, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, who proclaimed the self-styled caliphate in 2014, remains at large.
The US State Department sanctioned Kotey in January 2017, saying he was a guard for the “Beatles” and “likely engaged in the group’s executions and exceptionally cruel torture methods, including electronic shock and waterboarding.”
Kotey had also acted as a recruiter and was responsible for recruiting several British nationals to join the militant group, the State Department said.
In March 2017, the State Department sanctioned Elsheikh, saying he was “said to have earned a reputation for waterboarding, mock executions, and crucifixions while serving as an ISIS jailer.”
The most notorious of the four was Mohammed Emwazi, known as “Jihadi John,” an executioner of hostages made famous by Daesh videos of beheadings.
A US-British missile strike believed to have killed Emwazi, a British citizen of Arab origin, was months in preparation but came together at lightning speed in 2015 in the Syrian town of Raqqa, according to US officials.
Emwazi became the public face of Daesh and a symbol of its brutality after appearing in videos showing the murders of US journalists Steven Sotloff and James Foley, US aid worker Abdul-Rahman Kassig, British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning, Japanese journalist Kenji Goto and other hostages.
Syrian Kurds capture two British Daesh militants — US officials
Syrian Kurds capture two British Daesh militants — US officials
Iraqi army fully takes over key base following US withdrawal
BAGHDAD: US forces have fully withdrawn from an air base in western Iraq in implementation of an agreement with the Iraqi government, Iraqi officials said Saturday.
Washington and Baghdad agreed in 2024 to wind down a US-led coalition fighting the Daesh group in Iraq by September 2025, with US forces departing bases where they had been stationed.
However, a small unit of US military advisers and support personnel remained. Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani in October told journalists that the agreement originally stipulated a full pullout of US forces from the Ain Al-Asad air base in western Iraq by September. But “developments in Syria” since then required maintaining a “small unit” of between 250 and 350 advisers and security personnel at the base.
Now all US personnel have departed.
Iraqi Army Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Abdul Amir Rashid Yarallah oversaw the assignment of tasks and duties to various military units at the base on Saturday following the withdrawal of US forces and the Iraqi Army’s full assumption of control over the base, the military said in a statement.
The statement added that Yarallah “instructed relevant authorities to intensify efforts, enhance joint work, and coordinate between all units stationed at the base, while making full use of its capabilities and strategic location.”
A Ministry of Defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly confirmed that all US forces had departed the base and had also removed all American equipment from it.
There was no statement from the US military on the withdrawal.
US forces have retained a presence in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq and in neighboring Syria.
The departure of US forces may strengthen the hand of the government in discussions around disarmament of non-state armed groups in the country, some of which have used the presence of US troops as justification for keeping their own weapons.
Al-Sudani said in a July interview with The Associated Press that once the coalition withdrawal is complete, “there will be no need or no justification for any group to carry weapons outside the scope of the state.”
