On October 6, 2022, the U.S. military published a press release that stated they conducted a helicopter raid near Al Qamishli, Syria targeting an ISIS official, Rakkan Wahid al-Shammri, who is said to be an arms smuggler. Another officer was killed while two others were detained. According to NBC, the U.S. military did not notify the Russian military- an ally of the Syrian forces- about the raid. No civilians or U.S. forces were reported killed or injured.
The raid took place in "regime-held-areas," making this specific raid quite rare as the U.S. has not had a published operation within government-held land. According to an unnamed local source by Reuters, the people who had seen the man thought he was a shepherd and that nobody knows his true identity. Another unnamed security source said al-Shammri was responsible for coordinating IS sleep cells in the area.
Note that we could not find a source describing al-Shammri as an IS official, or even his face. If anyone knows the whereabouts of a source directly proving that al-Shammri was indeed an IS official, then please send any found.
Until then, we await further news.
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