The operation which killed the head of the extremist group was unusually high-risk.
The decision to deploy a Special Forces team to target Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi showed he was considered an important figure by Washington.Sending teams on the ground is far riskier and has been reserved for what are seen as "high-value" targets or those where the conditions are challenging - most notably the raid that killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011.
The risks were apparent in this latest mission with a helicopter having to be destroyed, although no US personnel are reported to have been injured. He is thought to have originally been an officer in former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's Iraqi army before joining the fight against the US after 2003 -initially with al-Qaeda before later joining IS.
The US also said al-Qurayshi "was one of ISIS's most senior ideologues" and "helped drive and justify the abduction, slaughter, and trafficking of the Yazidi religious minority in north-west Iraq and also led some of the group's global terrorist operations".Syrian first responders said they found the bodies of 13 people at the targeted site
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