Abu Sayyaf was the ''
nom de guerre'' of a senior leader of the
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
An Islamic state is a state that has a form of government based on Islamic law (sharia). As a term, it has been used to describe various historical polities and theories of governance in the Islamic world. As a translation of the Arabic term ...
(ISIL) who was described as overseeing gas and oil operations.
United States authorities identified Abu Sayyaf's real name as Fathi Ben Awn Ben Jildi Murad al-Tunisi.
Abu Sayyaf was killed on the night of May 15–16, 2015 while resisting capture during a
United States Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...
Delta Force
The 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment–Delta (1st SFOD-D), referred to variously as Delta Force, Combat Applications Group (CAG), Army Compartmented Elements (ACE), "The Unit", or within Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), Task Fo ...
operation in eastern
Syria.
[Barbara Starr, Laura Smith-Spark & Ray Sanc]
Abu Sayyaf, key ISIS figure in Syria, killed in U.S. raid
CNN (May 17, 2015).
Death
The operation was conducted to try to capture him and his wife on suspicion of their involvement in, or "deep knowledge" of Islamic State hostage operations.
Kayla Mueller is reported to have been a "personal captive" of Abu Sayyaf. No U.S. soldiers were killed or injured during the operation.
It was the first direct action ground raid targeting the militant group by U.S. soldiers inside Syria. (a
previous U.S. ground operation in Syria was a rescue mission). Items, including several terabytes of data from laptops, cellphones and other material, were recovered from the scene and exploited for intelligence purposes. More information was collected in the raid than any other in
United States special operations forces history. Among the objects found there are archaeological finds, which prove the involvement of IS in
illicit antiquities
The antiquities trade is the exchange of antiquities and archaeological artifacts from around the world. This trade may be illicit or completely legal. The legal antiquities trade abides by national regulations, allowing for extraction of artifact ...
trade.
The operation was launched from
Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...
, with the "full consent of Iraqi authorities."
A senior administration official said that the administration had assessed it likely that Abu Sayyaf was in direct contact with Islamic State leader and self-proclaimed caliph,
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi ( ar, أبو بكر البغدادي, ʾAbū Bakr al-Baḡdādī; born Ibrahim Awad Ibrahim Ali Muhammad al-Badri al-Samarrai ( ar, إبراهيم عواد إبراهيم علي محمد البدري السامرائي, ʾIb ...
.
Abu Sayyaf's wife, known by the nom de guerre "
Umm Sayyaf
Nasrin As'ad Ibrahim, better known by the ''nom de guerre'' Umm Sayyaf, is the widow of Abu Sayyaf. She was captured in May 2015 by US Delta Force soldiers on the mission where they killed her husband, a suspected leader of the Islamic State.
Dur ...
" and said to be an ISIL member, was captured during the operation. A young
Yazidi
Yazidis or Yezidis (; ku, ئێزیدی, translit=Êzidî) are a Kurmanji-speaking endogamous minority group who are indigenous to Kurdistan, a geographical region in Western Asia that includes parts of Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran. The ma ...
woman who appeared to be held as a slave of the couple was freed.
A senior administration official told CNN that Abu Sayyaf was a Tunisian citizen.
, an Iraqi researcher on ISIL and security threats, said that al-Jabouri was "a close associate of chief ISIS spokesman
Abu Mohammed al-Adnani
Taha Sobhi Falaha ( ar, طٰهٰ صُبْحِيِّ فَلَاحَةٍ, Ṭāhā Ṣobḥī Falāḥa; 1977 – 30 August 2016), known as Abu Muhammad al-Adnani al-Shami ( ar, أَبُو مُحَمَّدٍ ٱلْعَدْنَانِيُّ ٱلشَ ...
."
References
{{Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
2015 deaths
Assassinated ISIL members