US commandos mounted a rare raid into eastern Syria overnight, killing a senior Islamic State commander and about a dozen others in a firefight, capturing his wife and rescuing a Yazidi woman held as a slave, the Pentagon said Saturday.
Defense Secretary Ash Carter identified the militant as Abu Sayyaf, who helped direct the Islamic State's oil, gas and financial operations. He said the wife Umm Sayyaf, who is now in US military detention in Iraq, "played an important role in ISIL's terrorist activities."