BEIRUT: A US-led coalition captured a senior member of the Daesh group in northwest Syria on Wednesday, state media and a war monitor reported. It was not immediately clear if the man is the Daesh supreme leader.
Abu Hafs Al-Qurayshi, an Iraqi citizen and Daesh commander, was detained during a pre-dawn operation that included landing troops from helicopters in the town of Atmeh, near the Turkish border. Another Iraqi citizen was killed, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The US military did not respond to a request for comment.
The Observatory said the man captured had a French-speaking woman with him, and it was not immediately clear if she was taken by the US force or by Syrian security forces who later cordoned the area.
Two years ago, Daesh announced that a man called Abu Hafs Al-Hashemi Al-Qurayshi was named as its new leader after Turkish authorities killed his predecessor.
Syrian state TV on Wednesday quoted an unnamed security official as saying the Iraqi man targeted in the operation is known as Ali, adding that his real name is Salah Noman. It said Noman was living in an apartment with his wife, son and mother. It said he was killed in the raid.
There was no immediate clarification for the difference in names reported by state media and the war monitor.
UN counter-terrorism chief Vladimir Voronkov told the UN Security Council on Wednesday that while multiple leaders of the Daesh have perished in the past few years, “the group has managed to retain its operational capacity.”
“There is no indication that the killing of its deputy leader in charge of operational planning, which resulted from counter-terrorism operations in Iraq in March, will be any different,” he said, citing unnamed countries as saying the extremist group may recover from such a loss within six months.
Acting US Ambassador Dorothy Shea made no mention of Wednesday’s arrest, but said the Trump administration has intensified counter-terrorism operations globally, including targeting the Daesh, also known as ISIL, and Al-Qaeda’s leadership, infrastructure, and financial networks.
Daesh broke away from Al-Qaeda more than a decade ago and attracted supporters from around the world after it declared a so-called caliphate in 2014 in large parts of Syria and Iraq. Despite its defeat in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria two years later, Daesh militants still carry out deadly attacks in both countries and elsewhere.
Al-Qurayshi is not the real name of Daesh leaders but comes from Quraish, the name of the tribe to which Islam’s Prophet Muhammad belonged. Daesh claims its leaders hail from the tribe, and “al-Qurayshi” is part of their nom de guerre.
US-led coalition captures a senior Daesh member in Syria
https://arab.news/pe5zf
US-led coalition captures a senior Daesh member in Syria
- Two years ago, Daesh announced that a man called Abu Hafs Al-Hashemi Al-Qurayshi was named as its new leader after Turkish authorities killed his predecessor
Israeli measures in West Bank seek to ‘assassinate Palestinian state’: Saudi UN envoy
- Kingdom ‘strongly condemns decision to convert lands to state property,’ Abdulaziz Alwasil tells Security Council
- ‘There’s no doubt that these violations undermine efforts to achieve peace and stability in the region’
NEW YORK: Saudi Arabia on Wednesday strongly condemned Israel’s “unlawful coercive measures” in the occupied West Bank, telling the UN Security Council that the actions amount to an attempt to “assassinate the Palestinian state” and undermine prospects for peace.
Speaking at a ministerial-level council meeting chaired by British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, Saudi Arabia’s UN Ambassador Abdulaziz Alwasil said Riyadh rejects Israeli moves to expand settlements, seize land and alter the status of the Occupied Territories.
Israeli authorities “continue to gravely violate the rights of the Palestinian people” in the West Bank, he said.
“We meet today, more than two years after the Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip, and at a moment where we also witness a new chapter of suffering and violations committed by the Israeli occupation,” Alwasil added.
Recent coercive measures aimed at imposing “Israeli dominance over the West Bank, expanding settlement activity, escalating settlers terrorism, practicing forced displacement against the Palestinian people and seizing their land … reflects Israel’s persistence in its attempt to assassinate the Palestinian state,” he said.
Israel’s adherence to a ceasefire agreement and halting its “illegal policies and seizure of land” have become “urgent matters that can’t be further delayed,” Alwasil added, calling for an end to “ongoing violations associated with annexation of lands belonging to unarmed Palestinians in the West Bank.”
Alwasil said 85 states have denounced the measures, and Saudi Arabia “strongly condemns the decision of the Israeli occupying authorities to convert lands in the West Bank to what it calls state property as part of schemes that aim to impose a new legal and administrative reality in the occupied West Bank.”
He added: “There’s no doubt that these violations undermine efforts to achieve peace and stability in the region.”
Alwasil reiterated that “Israel has no sovereignty” over the Occupied Territories, and expressed Riyadh’s “absolute rejection of these illegal measures which constitute a grave violation of international law, particularly Security Council resolution 2334.”
He added that “these actions are an aggression on the inherent right of the brotherly Palestinian people to establish their independent state on the June 4, 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital,” and that the measures aim to “alter the demographic composition and the character and the status” of the Occupied Territories.
He cited the 2024 advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice, saying it is “clear and explicit” in affirming that “Israel’s policies and practices in the occupied Palestinian territory and its continued presence there is considered unlawful.”
He added: “It stressed that Israeli occupation must end and that it is invalid to annex occupied Palestinian territories.”
Alwasil also condemned the seizure and demolition of a compound belonging to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East in East Jerusalem and the cutting of electricity to its facilities, including schools and health centers.
“This is an unprecedented violation of international humanitarian law aimed at undermining the status of Palestinian refugees” in the Occupied Territories, he said.
With the advent of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, he called for protecting humanitarian organizations and ensuring that they can carry out their duties “without hindrance.”
He said: “We strongly condemn practices that target humanitarian workers throughout the Palestinian territories. UNRWA isn’t a terrorist organization, and such claims are unacceptable.”
Alwasil added: “The international community must come together to provide protection for UNRWA under international humanitarian law.”
He said that in response to an invitation from US President Donald Trump, Saudi Arabia will “participate constructively and actively” in an inaugural meeting of the Board of Peace scheduled for Thursday in Washington, DC.
“We value the efforts of President Trump and his administration and the attention that they have devoted to ending the war and achieving peace in the Gaza Strip,” Alwasil added.
The Kingdom has signed the instrument of accession to the Board of Peace “in support of its efforts as a transitional body in accordance with a comprehensive plan to end the conflict in Gaza that was adopted by the Security Council by virtue of resolution 2803,” he said.
“This track aims to establish a permanent ceasefire, support the reconstruction of Gaza, and push forth a just and lasting peace based on the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination and the establishment of their independent state.”
Alwasil called for opening crossings to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza and enabling “Palestinian and international committees to administer” the enclave “with no conditions to ensure the management of the daily affairs” of its population while preserving “the institutional and geographic linkages between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in a manner that would guarantee the unity of Palestinian land.”
Riyadh rejects “any attempt to divide or undermine the integrity of Palestinian lands,” he said. “The only path to achieving a just and comprehensive peace requires establishing a permanent ceasefire, preventing displacement and annexation, ensuring Israel’s full withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, and supporting the reconstruction.”
