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A raid was conducted by US forces and a local Syrian group aimed at capturing a Islamic State Family members and Syrian officials told The Associated Press that the group’s official instead killed a man who was tasked with gathering intelligence about the militants.
The killing in October underscores the complex political and security landscape as the United States begins working with interim Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa in the fight against IS remnants.
According to relatives, Khalid had been spying on IS for years on behalf of the rebels led by al-Masoud al-Sharaa and then for al-Sharaa’s interim government established after the fall of the former president. bashar asad A year ago. The rebels of al-Sharaa were mainly IslamistsSome are linked to al-Qaeda, but are enemies of IS who have frequently clashed with it over the past decade.
Neither US nor Syrian government officials have commented on al-Masoud’s death, a sign that neither side wants the incident to derail improvements in relations. A few weeks after the October 19 raid, al-Sharaa visited Washington and announced that Syria would join the global coalition against IS.
Still, al-Masoud’s death could be a “considerable blow” to efforts to fight IS, said Waseem Nasr, a senior research fellow at the Soufan Center, a New York-based think tank that focuses on security issues.
Nasr said al-Masoud was infiltrating IS in Syria’s southern desert known as Badiya, one of the areas where remnants of the extremist group have been active.
The raid targeting them was a result of “lack of coordination among the coalition” damascus,” Nasr said.
In the latest sign of increased cooperation, US Central Command said on Sunday that US troops and forces from Syria interior Ministry detected and destroyed 15 IS weapons caches in the south.
Situation of confusion regarding raid
The raid took place in Dumayr, a city on the desert edge east of Damascus. Residents woke up around 3 a.m. to the sound of heavy vehicles and planes.
Residents said US troops carried out the raid in conjunction with the Syrian Free Army, a US-trained opposition group that has fought against Assad. The SFA now officially reports to the Syrian Defense Ministry.
Abdel Karim Massoud, al-Masoud’s cousin, said he opened his door and saw Humvees with American flags.
“On top of one of them was someone who spoke broken Arabic, who pointed a machine gun and a green laser light at us and told us to go back inside,” he said.
Khaled al-Masoud’s mother, Sabah al-Sheikh al-Kilani, said forces surrounded the house next door to her son’s, where he was with his wife and five daughters, and knocked down the door.
Al-Masoud told them he was with the General Security, a force under the Syrian Interior Ministry, but they broke down the door and shot him, al-Kilani said.
They took him away injured, al-Kilani said. Later, government security officials told the family that he had been released but remained in hospital. Then the family was called to collect his body. It was not clear when he died.
“How did he die? We don’t know,” his mother said. “I want the people who took her away from her children to be held accountable.”
faulty intelligence
Al-Masoud’s family believes he was targeted based on faulty intelligence provided by members of the Syrian Free Army.
Representatives of the SFA did not respond to requests for comment.
His cousin said al-Massoud had worked with al-Shara’s rebel group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, in the northwestern region of Idlib before Assad’s fall. He then returned to Dumair and worked with the security services of al-Shara’a’s government.
Two Syrian security officials and a political official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly, confirmed that al-Massoud was working in a security role with Syria’s interim government. The two officials said they had worked to combat IS.
Initial media reports on the raid said that an IS officer had been captured. But US Central Command, which typically issues a statement when an American operation kills or captures a member of the extremist group in Syria, made no announcement.
A US defense official, when asked for more information about the raid and its targets and whether it was coordinated with the Syrian government, said, “We are aware of these reports but we have no information to provide.” The officer said this on the condition of anonymity as per the rules.
Representatives of the Syrian defense and interior ministries and US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack declined to comment.
Better coordination can prevent mistakes
At its peak in 2015, IS controlled an area in Iraq and Syria half the size of the United Kingdom. It was notorious for its brutality against religious minorities as well as Muslims who did not follow the group’s extreme interpretation of Islam.
After years of fighting, a US-led coalition broke the group’s last hold on the territory in late 2019. Since then, US troops in Syria have been working to ensure IS cannot regain a foothold. The US estimates that IS still has about 2,500 members in Syria and Iraq. US Central Command said last month that the number of IS attacks there has dropped to 375 so far this year, compared to 1,038 last year.
Fewer than 1,000 US troops are believed to be active in Syria, carrying out airstrikes and raids against IS cells. They operate primarily with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in the northeast and the Syrian Free Army in the south.
Now the United States has another partner: the security forces of the new Syrian government.
Airwars, a London-based conflict monitor, has reported 52 incidents in which civilians were harmed or killed in coalition operations in Syria since 2020.
The group classified al-Masood as a civilian.
Airwars director Emily Tripp said the group has seen “many examples of what the US calls ‘mistakes,'” including a 2023 case in which the US military announced it had killed an al-Qaeda leader in a drone strike. The target later turned out to be a civilian farmer.
It is unclear whether the October 19 raid went wrong due to faulty intelligence or whether someone deliberately gave false information to the coalition. Nasr said that in the past, feuding groups have sometimes used alliances to settle scores.
“That’s the whole purpose of having a hotline with Damascus, to see who is on the ground,” he said.