The Syrian Observatory For Human Rights

Amid flight by Russian reconnaissance drone | Several armed Coalition drones fly over northern Idlib

SOHR activists say that observatories in north-west Syria region have spotted four drones of the International Coalition flying over areas in northern Aleppo on the Syria border with Turkey’s Iskenderun, amid the flight of a Russian reconnaissance drone over the “de-escalation zone.”

 

Yesterday, SOHR activists reported that nearly 36 hours passed on the beginning of a “security operation” for killing “Abdullah Qardash”, also known as “Abu Ibrahim Al-Hashimi Al-Quraysh”, the successor of Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, ex-ISIS leader, and still the results and the conditions of the operation raise many questions while only the US team who carried out the operation owns the complete answers.

 

Stories vary about the conditions of killing the children and women and the identity of the survivors. However, only the death of Qardash is a piece of confirmed information.

 

It is confirmed that at least 12 people inside the building that housed Qardash were killed, and another one, a member of the Hayaat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), who was in the surrounding area was killed in collateral damage.

 

SOHR sources confirmed that the 12 killed people inside the building are: four children, three women, and a girl, two men, and two others whose dismembered bodies were not identified whether they are adults or children. Meanwhile, one of several reports about the identity of the dead people says that two of the murdered women are wives of Abu Ibrahim Al-Hashimi Al-Quraysh.

 

Meanwhile, other sources said one of the dead women was living on the ground floor of the building which suggests that Qardash had only one wife.

 

On the other hand, some stories say that Qardash’s two sons and his foreign sister and her daughter that were living on the second floor as well as one of Qardash’s aids were killed in the operation, adding that ISIS former leader was living in the first floor.

 

Meanwhile, there are circulated reports suggest that Qardas son-in-law and two unknown children were visiting the building from time to time. Also, the identity of two torn-off bodies, whether they are adults or children remains unknown.

 

Other stories suggest that till now, nobody could confirm if Qardash’s sister has blown herself or has been targeted directly by the Coalition forces and then her body was torn off. Also, remains of Qardash’s body were found in the building.

 

Till that moment, no one could confirm the conditions of the death of 12 people whether they were killed in an explosion or targeted directly by the International Coalition forces amid information about other people were in the building during the operation, but their destiny remains unknown.

 

The correct version of the story could be only told by the Coalition forces that carried out the operation.

 

According to SOHR sources, Qardash was living in the targeted building for a short period, and he owns a small truck for working to conceal his real identity. Qardash also told his neighbours that he was displaced from Aleppo.

 

On Fabruary 3, President Joe Biden announced that US military forces in Syria killed an ISIS commander called “Abdullah Qardash”, also known as “Abu Ibrahim Al-Hashimi Al-Quraysh”, an Iraqi commander form Mosul city, in a successful operation, targeted the area between Idlib and Aleppo at Iskenderun border.

 

Since the beginning of the International Coalition security operation at midnight, SOHR has confirmed that the operation was completely similar to the attack which led to the death of ISIS former leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi in Idlib in 2019, in a region that was a few kilometres away from the area where the operation was carried out.