US special forces carry out anti-terror attack in north-west Syria

US special forces carried out a counter-terrorism operation in north-west Syria overnight, the Pentagon said, in a raid that a monitoring group said killed at least nine people.

The US defence department said there were no American casualties. But the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring organisation, said the casualties included two children and a woman.

It appeared to be one of the biggest US assaults of its type in north-west Syria since special forces conducted an operation that killed Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of Isis, in 2019.

The Pentagon did not say who, or what, was targeted in the raid. Charles Lister, director of the Syria and Countering Terrorism and Extremism programmes at the Middle East Institute, said the raid was likely to have targeted a militant of “very high rank” whether in al-Qaeda or Isis.

The SOHR said the US troops landed in helicopters in the village of Atmeh in Idlib province, the last enclave held by Syrian opposition forces, and met resistance from fighters on the ground as they launched an assault on a two-storey building.

The latest special forces mission comes two weeks after Isis militants launched a bold assault on a prison holding thousands of suspected jihadis in north-east Syria that is controlled by US-backed Syrian Kurdish forces.

The Syrian Democratic Forces, which operate the prison in Hasaka, said 121 prison staff and SDF fighters and 374 Isis militants were killed in the week-long assault on the detention facility. The US supported the SDF’s battle to retake control of the prison with air strikes and by moving Bradley fighting vehicles into the area.

The US has just under a 1,000 troops in Syria where they support the SDF and have been involved in the fight against Isis.

Islamist militants exploited the chaos of the civil war in Syria to gain footholds in the country, with Isis seizing control of vast swaths of Syria and neighbouring Iraq in a blitz in 2014.

At its height the movement controlled an area the size of Britain, but it was driven from territorial strongholds in both countries by international coalitions.

Isis surrendered the final enclave in Syria under its control three years ago, but the attack on the prison in Hasaka underscored the threat the jihadi group continues to pose.

Idlib province, which is home to about 3mn people, many who fled to escape Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, is controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which has emerged as the most powerful Islamist militant group in Syria.

The group, which is designated a terrorist organisation by the US, has long been considered an affiliate of al-Qaeda, but it has attempted to rebrand itself and distance itself from the network formed by Osama bin Laden.