A raid by U.S. forces and a local Syrian group aiming to capture an Islamic State official instead killed a man who had been working undercover gathering intelligence on the extremists, family members and Syrian officials told The Associated Press.
The killing in October underscores the complex political and security landscape as the United States begins cooperating with interim Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa in the fight against remnants of IS.
Relatives said Khaled al-Masoud had been spying on IS for years on behalf of insurgents led by al-Sharaa and, later, for al-Sharaa’s interim government, which was established after the fall of former President Bashar Assad a year ago. Al-Sharaa’s insurgents were mainly Islamists, some connected to al-Qaida, but they were enemies of IS and often clashed with the group over the past decade.
Neither U.S. nor Syrian officials have commented on al-Masoud’s death, a sign that neither side wants the incident to derail improving ties. Weeks after the Oct. 19 raid, al-Sharaa visited Washington and announced that Syria would join the global coalition against IS.
Still, al-Masoud’s death could be “quite a setback” for efforts to combat IS, said Wassim Nasr, a senior research fellow with the Soufan Center, a New York-based security think tank.
Nasr said al-Masoud had infiltrated IS in the southern deserts of Syria known as the Badiya, one of the areas where remnants of the extremist group remain active. The raid that targeted him, he said, appeared to stem from “a lack of coordination between the coalition and Damascus.”
In the latest sign of growing cooperation, U.S. Central Command said Sunday that American troops and Syria’s Interior Ministry forces located and destroyed 15 IS weapons caches in the south.
Confusion around the raid
The raid occurred in Dumayr, a town east of Damascus on the edge of the desert. Residents said they awoke around 3 a.m. to the sound of heavy vehicles and aircraft.
They said U.S. forces conducted the operation alongside the Syrian Free Army, a U.S.-trained opposition faction that once fought against Assad and now reports to the Syrian Defense Ministry.
Al-Masoud’s cousin, Abdel Kareem Masoud, said he opened his door and saw Humvees with U.S. flags. “Someone on top of one of them spoke broken Arabic and pointed a machine gun and a green laser at us, telling us to go back inside,” he said.
Al-Masoud’s mother, Sabah al-Sheikh al-Kilani, said the forces surrounded her son’s house next door, where he was staying with his wife and five daughters, and banged on the door. Al-Masoud told them he was with General Security, a force under the Interior Ministry, but they broke down the door and shot him, she said.
They took him away wounded, she said. Later, security officials told the family he had been released and was in the hospital. The family was then called to collect his body. It was unclear when he died.
“How did he die? We don’t know,” his mother said. “I want the people who took him from his children to be held accountable.”
Faulty intelligence
The family believes he was targeted based on faulty intelligence from members of the Syrian Free Army. The SFA did not respond to requests for comment.
His cousin said al-Masoud had worked with al-Sharaa’s insurgent group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, in its Idlib enclave before Assad’s fall. He later returned to Dumayr and worked with the security services of al-Sharaa’s government.
Two Syrian security officials and one political official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed al-Masoud’s role with the interim government. Two said he was involved in combating IS.
Initial media reports on the raid said an IS official had been captured. But U.S. Central Command, which typically announces when its operations kill or capture IS members in Syria, issued no statement. A U.S. defense official said only, “We are aware of these reports but do not have any information to provide,” speaking on condition of anonymity.
Officials from Syria’s defense and interior ministries and from the office of U.S. envoy to Syria Tom Barrack declined to comment.
Increased coordination could prevent mistakes
At its height in 2015, IS controlled territory across Iraq and Syria about half the size of the United Kingdom. It was infamous for its brutality against religious minorities and Muslims who rejected its ideology.
After years of fighting, the U.S.-led coalition broke the group’s last territorial hold in late 2019. U.S. forces in Syria now work to prevent its resurgence. The U.S. estimates that IS still has about 2,500 members in Syria and Iraq. Central Command said last month that IS attacks had dropped to 375 so far this year, down from 1,038 a year earlier.
Fewer than 1,000 U.S. troops are believed to be operating in Syria. They conduct raids and airstrikes mainly alongside the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in the northeast and the Syrian Free Army in the south. Now, they also cooperate with the new Syrian government’s security forces.
Airwars, a London-based conflict monitor, has documented 52 incidents in which civilians were harmed or killed in coalition operations in Syria since 2020. The group classified al-Masoud as a civilian.
Airwars director Emily Tripp said the group has recorded “multiple instances of what the U.S. calls ‘mistakes,’” including a 2023 case in which the U.S. said it had killed an al-Qaida leader in a drone strike, only for the target to be identified later as a civilian farmer.
It remains unclear whether the Oct. 19 raid was based on faulty intelligence or if someone intentionally fed false information to coalition forces. Nasr noted that feuding groups have, in the past, used the coalition to settle scores.
“That’s the whole point of having a hotline with Damascus, in order to see who’s who on the ground,” he said.