SYRIAN DEMOCRATIC FORCES CAPTURE PROMINENT FRENCH ISIS MEMBER

On May 24, the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) annonced in an official statement that its units had captured a group of ISIS fighters including French-jihadist Adrien Guihal during a special operation inside Syria on May 19. The US-backed force claimed that its intelligence had tracked Guihal for months before it had been able to capture him.

Adrien Guihal

The SDF revealed that Guihal had joined ISIS on 6 March of 2015 after he had managed to enter Syria through the Tell Abyad border crossing on the Syrian-Turkish border.

According to the SDF statement, Guihal played a key role in the terrorist attacks that hit the French capital of Paris on November 13 and 14 of 2015 and in the ramming attack in the city of Nice on July 14, 2016.

The US-backed force said that it had also captured Guihal’s wife during the same operation, but didn’t clarify if it is planning to hand him over to France, or at least to French troops that are now operating in the SDF-held areas in eastern Syria.

Earlier this month, the Iraqi National Intelligence Service (INIS) announced that it had captured five senior ISIS commanders on the Syrian-Iraqi border and in Turkey in a successful special operation, which was coordinated with the SDF.

Several officials of the Iraqi intelligence suggested that a majority of ISIS leadership is still hiding on the Syrian-Iraqi border to this day, including the head of the terrorist organization, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

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