US captures ISIS leader in Syria

WASHINGTON, United States

The United States has captured an ISIS leader who helped members of the terror group after they escaped from a detention facility in Syria, according to U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM). 

CENTCOM forces, working with Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), captured Khaled Ahmed al-Dandal on Sunday, according to a release, just days after five ISIS foreign terrorist fighter detainees fled the Raqqah Detention Facility.  

Three of the escapees remain at large, according to CENTCOM, after SDF recaptured two others. Al-Dandal was assessed as a “facilitator” aiding efforts of detained ISIS fighters.

More than 9,000 ISIS detainees are held in over 20 SDF detention facilities in Syria, the military said, and ISIS wants to free its detained fighters and “subsequently fuel an ISIS revival.” 

Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla, CENTCOM commander, called the numbers “a literal and figurative ‘ISIS Army’ in detention.”

“If a large number of these ISIS fighters escaped, it would pose an extreme danger to the region and beyond,” Kurilla said in a statement, adding that the U.S. will continue to work with the international community to repatriate the ISIS fighters to their countries of origin. 

Last week, the U.S. military and Iraqi Security Forces targeted ISIS militants in a separate raid that left at least 15 of the group’s operatives dead in Western Iraq. 

The latest developments come as threats from terrorist groups such as ISIS come into new focus three years after the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, worrying security experts. Last month, ISIS-affiliated actors carried out a stabbing attack in Germany and threatened a Taylor Swift concert in Austria.