By Phil Stewart and Trevor Hunnicutt

U. S. forces repeated the helicopter attack over and over again, hoping to capture the Islamic State leader on the third ground of a residential construction site in a Syrian town on the border with Turkey, where he locked up his family.

But before they can succeed, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi al-Quraishi detonated a suicide bomb, triggering a giant explosion that threw mutilated bodies, in addition to his own, out of the building into the outer streets.

President Joe Biden, who oversaw the raid from the White House crisis room, called Quraishi’s suicide “the latest act of desperate cowardice. “U. S. incursion into Syria.

For the citizens of the city of Atmeh, the events were frightening, as U. S. forces arrived in helicopters before attempting to evacuate civilians from the concrete block building, with loudspeakers to tell them to leave.

“Men, women and children, raise your hand. You are from the American coalition surrounding the area. They will die if they don’t faint,” one woman said, recalling american warnings.

Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, who oversees U. S. forces in the area and provided updates to Biden, said U. S. troops asked six civilians, and four more children, to leave the first floor of construction before the explosion ripped through the most sensitive terrain.

“The explosion, which was larger than one would expect from a suicide vest, killed everyone on the third floor and drove several people out of the building,” McKenzie said, adding that Quraishi, his wife and two children were killed.

As U. S. troops approached the floor of the moment, one of Quraishi’s lieutenants and his wife began firing on the Americans and were killed. One child was found dead, McKenzie said, and three other children and an infant were brought to safety from the floor at the time.

Syrian rescuers said at least thirteen other people had been killed, most of them women and children.

The Pentagon said at least two armed members of a local al-Qaeda partner were killed by gunfire from a U. S. helicopter after arriving at the scene of the attack while U. S. troops were still at the scene.

U. S. officials said Quraishi’s death is another setback for an organization that once ruled a self-proclaimed caliphate that stretched across the territory of Syria and Iraq. Now it is wearing down rebel attacks.

Planning for the operation began in early December, when officials were convinced the Islamic State leader lived in the building, officials said.

An official said the operation was confusing because Quraishi rarely left his apartment on the third floor of the building and relied on messengers to interact with the outside world.

The number of children seen in the domain and families believed to be living on the first piece of land has prompted U. S. officials to try to expand the project to civilians, they said.

In the end, this required putting U. S. forces in harm’s way with a raid, rather than launching an attack from a distance, officials said.

The procedures of the U. S. Army The U. S. to protect itself from civilian casualties is under surveillance following a high-profile erroneous drone strike in Kabul, evacuating civilians from the U. S. and Canada. UU. de Afghanistan that the Pentagon first hailed as a success.

The Pentagon said it would review all data from the Atmeh raid to verify that no civilians were injured by U. S. forces, but under pressure that all indications so far were that the civilian deaths were caused by Islamic State fighters themselves.

Biden gave final approvals for the project Tuesday at an Oval Office meeting with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Gen. Mark Milley, who, as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is the most sensible officer in the U. S. military. U. S. officials said.

Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and other management officials got real-time updates from Austin, Milley and McKenzie as they watched the operation unfold from the stage room, officials said.

At one point, a helicopter involved in the attack suffered mechanical failure and had to be destroyed rather than abandoned, the Pentagon said.

Biden said “God bless our troops” once U. S. forces rose after the operation and watched them overnight as they flew to safety, he said.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart and Trevor Hunnicutt; additional reporting by John Davidson and Suleiman Al-Khalidi; editing by Mary Milliken, Will Dunham, Chizu Nomiyama, and Daniel Wallis)

-Reuters

U. S. Special Forces The U. S. effectively conducted an anti-terror project in northwestern Syria, according to the Pentagon, a raid that, according to Syrian resources, was aimed at a jihadist.

At least six other people were killed in a suicide bombing at a crowded restaurant in the eastern city of Beni in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

British police have accused a 25-year-old Londoner of Somali origin of stabbing to death a parliamentarian in a church.

A drone strike struck near U. S. forces stationed at Erbil International Airport in northern Iraq, Iraqi Kurdish security officials said.

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