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ISIS leader who planned Istanbul nightclub attack killed in US ground raid
 [ABCNEWS.GO] A "close associate" of ISIS leader His Supreme Immensity, Caliph of the Faithful and Galactic Overlord, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi...formerly merely the head of ISIL and a veteran of the Bagram jailhouse. Looks like a new messiah to bajillions of Moslems, like just another dead-eyed mass murder to the rest of us... was killed in a U.S. ground raid in Syria on April 6, U.S. Central Command said today. The raid targeted him for his role in planning the deadly New Years Eve nightclub attack in Istanbul, which killed 39 civilians. "Abdurakhmon Uzbeki, an ISIS operative, was killed by U.S. forces working on operation near al Mayadin Syria to kill him," Colonel John Thomas, the front man for U.S. Central Command, told Pentagon news hounds in phone briefing today. Al Mayadin is southeast of Dayr Az Zawr in the Euphrates River Valley. Thomas described Uzbeki as "a close associate" of al-Baghdadi who "was known to interact with him in various ways over time." Centcom has confirmed over the past two weeks that Uzbeki was killed in the raid. The front man described him as facilitating the movement of ISIS foreign terror fighters and funds. Uzbeki played a key role in ISIS external terror attack plotting and Thomas said he was "clearly linked" to the deadly Istanbul nightclub shooting attack on New Year's Eve. That deadly attack was carried out by Abdulkadir Masharipov, an Uzbeki national, on behalf of ISIS. Masharipov fired on hundreds of revelers at the trendy Reina nightclub killing 39 people and injuring dozens of others before he expeditiously departed at a goodly pace. He was captured in a police raid in Istanbul two weeks after the attack and, according to Turkish authorities, confessed to his role in the attack. Uzbeki is believed to have been involved in planning the attack. Thomas described the April 6 ground raid in Syria targeting Uzbeki "as an operation in order to eliminate him." The raid was conducted by American special operations forces, said a defense official. Since late 2015 an "expeditionary targeting force" has operated inside Iraq and Syria targeting senior ISIS leaders. Typically their ground operations are not disclosed. Posted by: Fred 2017-04-22 |
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