The involvement of 8 military helicopters from the international coalition in an operation to capture prominent leaders of the ISIS terrorist organization in the Deir ez-Zor countryside late Monday into Tuesday has raised questions about the identities of the targets, who appear to be high-value targets for the coalition. According to activists from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the international coalition carried out a landing operation after midnight on Monday in the village of Al-Zar in eastern Deir ez-Zor, with the participation of 8 helicopters, including a personnel carrier. During this operation, they arrested a former official from the Health Bureau of the Euphrates Province within ISIS and another leader from the town of Al-Boulil.
Rami Abdul Rahman, the director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, provided more details about the operation and the identities of the detained ISIS leaders in an interview with "Sky News Arabia." He stated: "The arrested ISIS leaders are Abu Abdullah, a Syrian from the village of Al-Boulil, and the second is named Hussein Ali, but we are not entirely sure if he is Iraqi or Syrian. He is the Health Bureau official in the Euphrates Province, and they were found in the house of a person named Mazaal Al-Dhiab in the village of Al-Zar, which the coalition blew up after the operation, while he was not inside."
Abdul Rahman clarified that "according to testimonies from locals and collaborators, the Syrian Democratic Forces did not participate in the operation, which was limited to the international coalition forces." He also revealed that "in the morning, a coalition aircraft returned with one of the detainees, who directed coalition forces to a location for storing weapons belonging to ISIS in the targeted area, leading the coalition to dig up and confiscate the concealed weapons."
Abdul Rahman believes that "the large number of helicopters, one of which is designated for transporting troops, indicates the significance and danger of the operation that took place." According to local sources from the area who requested anonymity, they told "Sky News Arabia" that the operation was conducted based on precise intelligence, as many residents of those areas cooperate with the international coalition forces. However, some of them also work simultaneously with the dormant ISIS cells spread there as double agents, according to the description of those sources, which sometimes leads to conflicting intelligence information and the failure of numerous operations against elements of the ISIS terrorist organization.
