Washington - US special forces killed a senior Islamic State group leader and captured his wife in a daring night raid in eastern Syria, the White House announced on Saturday.
In the course of the dramatic operation, a Yazidi woman believed to have been enslaved by the couple was rescued as well, officials said.
The bold raid, with elite American commandos striking at the inner circle of the IS group in their eastern Syrian stronghold, was a rare use of "boots on the ground" by the United States, which has fought the jihadists almost entirely from the air.
On orders from President Barack Obama, the special operations forces based in Iraq sought to capture the IS militant, Abu Sayyaf, who oversaw oil smuggling and military operations for the jihadists. But the extremist was killed after firing on the US troops, the White House said.
"During the course of the operation, Abu Sayyaf was killed when he engaged US forces," a spokeswoman for the White House national security council, Bernadette Meehan, said in a statement.
His wife, Umm Sayyaf, suspected of being a member of the IS group, was captured, Meehan said.
AFP
