A U.S. operation in Syria last month mistakenly killed a man who had been working undercover against the Islamic State group, according to his family, a war monitor and officials.
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A new cookbook offers a better planDecades-old palm trees in Rio de Janeiro flower for the first — and only — timeWhere the blame will fall if ACA subsidies expire, according to a new pollWhat to know about the hepatitis B shot — and why Trump officials are targeting itKennedy's vaccine advisory committee delays vote on hepatitis B shots for newbornsOne Tech Tip: Want to turn off Meta AI? You can't — but there are some workaroundsEx-missionary from Ohio charged with sexually abusing 4 children in HaitiWorld NewsSabah al-Sheikh al-Kilani, the mother of Khaled al-Masoud, points to bullet holes in the wall of her son’s home after he was killed during a raid in the town of al-Dumayr, in the Damascus countryside, Syria, Oct. 28, 2025. Sabah al-Sheikh al-Kilani, the mother of Khaled al-Masoud, sits with several of his daughters at the family home after he was killed during a raid in the town of al-Dumayr, in the Damascus countryside, Syria, Oct. 28, 2025. A relative of Khaled al-Masoud holds a piece of a munition said to have been used in the raid that killed him, in the town of Dumayr, in the Damascus countryside, Syria, Oct. 28, 2025. Sabah al-Sheikh al-Kilani, the mother of Khaled al-Masoud, points to bullet holes in the wall of her son’s home after he was killed during a raid in the town of al-Dumayr, in the Damascus countryside, Syria, Oct. 28, 2025. Sabah al-Sheikh al-Kilani, the mother of Khaled al-Masoud, points to bullet holes in the wall of her son’s home after he was killed during a raid in the town of al-Dumayr, in the Damascus countryside, Syria, Oct. 28, 2025. Sabah al-Sheikh al-Kilani, the mother of Khaled al-Masoud, sits with several of his daughters at the family home after he was killed during a raid in the town of al-Dumayr, in the Damascus countryside, Syria, Oct. 28, 2025. Sabah al-Sheikh al-Kilani, the mother of Khaled al-Masoud, sits with several of his daughters at the family home after he was killed during a raid in the town of al-Dumayr, in the Damascus countryside, Syria, Oct. 28, 2025. A relative of Khaled al-Masoud holds a piece of a munition said to have been used in the raid that killed him, in the town of Dumayr, in the Damascus countryside, Syria, Oct. 28, 2025. A relative of Khaled al-Masoud holds a piece of a munition said to have been used in the raid that killed him, in the town of Dumayr, in the Damascus countryside, Syria, Oct. 28, 2025. group official instead killed a man who had been working undercover gathering intelligence on the extremists, family members and Syrian officials have told The Associated Press. The killing in October underscores the complex political and security landscape as the United States begins working with interim Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa in the fight against remnants of IS. According to relatives, Khaled al-Masoud had been spying on IS for years on behalf of the insurgents led by al-Sharaa and then for al-Sharaa’s interim government, established after thea year ago. Al-Sharaa’s insurgents were mainly Islamists, some connected to al-Qaida, but enemies of IS who often clashed with it over the past decade. Neither U.S. nor Syrian government officials have commented on al-Masoud’s death, an indication that neither side wants the incident to derail improving ties. Weeks after the Oct. 19 raid, al-Sharaa visited Washington and announced 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 think tank focused on security issues. Al-Masoud had been infiltrating IS in the southern deserts of Syria known as the Badiya, one of the places where remnants of the extremist group have remained active, Nasr said. The raid targeting him was a result of “the lack of coordination between the coalition and Damascus,” Nasr said. In the latest sign of the increasing cooperation, the U.S. Central Command said Sunday that American troops and forces from Syria’s Interior Ministry had located and destroyed 15 IS weapons caches in the south.The raid occurred in Dumayr, a town east of Damascus on the edge of the desert. At around 3 a.m., residents woke to the sound of heavy vehicles and planes. Residents said U.S. troops conducted the raid alongside the Syrian Free Army, a U.S.-trained opposition faction that had fought against Assad. The SFA now officially 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 on them. “There was someone on top of one of them who spoke broken Arabic, who pointed a machine gun at us and a green laser light and told us to go back inside,” he said. Khaled al-Masoud’s mother, Sabah al-Sheikh al-Kilani, said the forces then surrounded her son’s house next door, where he was with his wife and five daughters, and banged on the door. Al-Masoud told them that he was with General Security, a force under Syria’s Interior Ministry, but they broke down the door and shot him, al-Kilani said. They took him away, wounded, al-Kilani said. Later, government security officials told the family he had been released but was in the hospital. The family was then called to pick up his body. It was unclear when he had 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.”Al-Masoud’s family believes he was targeted based on faulty intelligence provided by members of the Syrian Free Army.Al-Masoud had worked with al-Sharaa’s insurgent group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, in its northwestern enclave of Idlib before Assad’s fall, his cousin said. Then he returned to Dumayr and worked with the security services of al-Sharaa’s government. Two Syrian security officials and one political official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly, confirmed that al-Masoud had been working with Syria’s interim government in a security role. Two of the officials said he had worked on combating IS. Initial media reports on the raid said it had captured an IS official. But U.S. Central Command, which typically issues statements when a U.S. operation kills or captures a member of the extremist group in Syria, made no announcement. A U.S. defense official, when asked for more information about the raid and its target and whether it had been coordinated with Syria’s government, said, “We are aware of these reports but do not have any information to provide.” The official spoke on condition of anonymity in accordance with regulations.At its peak in 2015, IS controlled a swath of territory across Iraq and Syria half the size of the United Kingdom. It was notorious for its brutality against religious minorities as well as Muslims not adhering to the group’s extreme interpretation of Islam. After years of fighting, the U.S.-led coalition broke the group’s last hold on territory in late 2019. Since then, U.S. troops in Syria have been working to ensure IS does not regain a foothold. The U.S. estimates IS still has about 2,500 members in Syria and Iraq. U.S. Central Command last month said the number of IS attacks there had fallen to 375 for the year so far, compared to 1,038 last year. Fewer than 1,000 U.S. troops are believed to be operating in Syria, carrying out airstrikes and conducting raids against IS cells. They work mainly alongside the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in the northeast and the Syrian Free Army in the south.Airwars, a London-based conflict monitor, has reported 52 incidents in which civilians were harmed or killed in coalition operations in Syria since 2020.Airwars director Emily Tripp said the group has seen “multiple instances of what the U.S. call ‘mistakes,’” including a 2023 case in which the U.S. military announced it had killed an al-Qaida leader in a drone strike. The target later turned out to be a It was unclear if the Oct. 19 raid went wrong due to faulty intelligence or if someone deliberately fed the coalition false information. Nasr said that in the past, feuding groups have sometimes 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.Sewell is the Associated Press news director for Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. She joined the AP in 2022 but has been based in the region since 2016, reporting and guiding coverage on some of its most significant news stories.
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