Syria says ISIL leader captured in Damascus countryside

DAMASCUS

A key leader of the ISIL terrorist group was captured late Wednesday in a joint operation by Syrian security forces and the U.S.-led international coalition against terrorism in the countryside of the Syrian capital Damascus.

Taha al-Zoubi, also known as Abu Omar Tibiya, served as the group’s ‘wali,’ or governor, of Damascus. He was captured along with some of his aides.

“As a result of the operation carried out by coalition forces and internal security units, ISIL’s so-called Damascus governor was captured," said a report by Syria’s state television channel Al-Ikhbariyah, citing a source from the Interior Ministry

Speaking to Syria’s official news agency SANA, Brigadier General Ahmad al-Dalati, head of Internal Security in the Damascus Countryside, said that after a long period of surveillance, a joint operation was conducted by the General Intelligence Directorate under the Interior Ministry and coalition forces against an ISIL cell in Muaddamiyah district.

Al-Dalati said that as a result of the operation, al-Zoubi and some of his aides were captured while wearing explosive vests.

The arrest came less than two weeks after a Dec. 13 attack killed two U.S. soldiers and a U.S. civilian that Washington said was carried out by a lone ISIL gunman in central Syria's Palmyra.

On Dec. 20, a Syria monitor said that five ISIL members were killed in U.S. strikes in retaliation for the Dec. 13 attack.

It was the first such incident since the overthrow of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in December last year, and Syrian authorities said the perpetrator was a security forces member who was due to be fired for his "extremist Islamist ideas".