Terrorist leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi blew himself up during a raid by US officials on Thursday. The self-detonated bomb killed Qurayshi, his family, including innocent children and others in his immediate vicinity.

President Joe Biden, who ordered the raid, said the world is rid of a man he described as the driving force behind the “genocide of the Yazidi people in north western Iraq in 2014,” when slaughters wiped out villages, thousands of women and young girls were sold into slavery, sexually abused and used as a weapon of war, reported AP.

The raid had been months in the works and executed with the understanding that children might die as well as the hunted IS chief if the building’s occupants did not get out when given the chance to leave.

Anticipated scenario?
U.S. forces had well anticipated that al-Qurayshi could well choose death by self-detonation if cornered. Should this occur, it was analysed that the three-story, cinder-block building would collapse and kill everyone inside, sparing much of the building and those not near him. The events that unfolded during the raid showed otherwise.

When helicopters carrying some 50 U.S. commandos thumped onto the ground in Syria an hour after midnight, the raiders confronted a houseful of extremists and children.

US officials said that the second floor of the Syrian house, was occupied by a lower ranking IS leader and his family. The ground floor, partly a basement, housed a family unconnected to the organisation and unaware of al-Qurayshi’s presence or significance.

The building’s occupants were told to get out during the raid. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said, ten people left the building, a man and woman from the first floor and eight children in all from the first and second.

The explosion, caused by the self-detonated bomb, came shortly afterwards, collapsing much of the third story and blew bodies out of the house, al-Qurayshi’s among them.

Gruesome aftermath
In images afterward on Media, blood could be seen on the walls and floor in what remains of the structure. A wrecked bedroom had a wooden crib and a stuffed rabbit doll. On one damaged wall, the baby swing was still hanging. Baby comforts, a blue plastic swing, a crib was also retrieved from the collapsed building.

A video from CNN showed the lifeless body of a child, a girl being pulled out from the debris. Soon after another body of a boy was lifted and wrapped in a blanket.

There were no immediate reports of how many children died in all, and how. The White House said three children had dies, while the Pentagon spoke of two, with no explanations of how the killings mush have transpired.

Biden said U.S. forces chose a riskier commando raid instead of an attack from the air to minimize civilian casualties. A raid was launched knowing very well that the terrorist leader might respond by killing innocent people around him as well as himself.

Gen. Frank McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command, said, the U.S. “as always” will look into whether innocent people were killed by its forces.
-AP