US-backed Syrian forces arrest French IS senior commander
QAMISHLO (Kurdistan 24) - The Kurdish-led, US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on Thursday said they captured an Islamic State (IS) senior commander who had allegedly been involved in the Paris and Nice attacks in 2015 and 2016 respectively.
In an online statement, the SDF claimed to have arrested French citizen Adrien Lionel Kayali in the Raqqa region of northern Syria.
“Special Operations Units of the Military Intelligence in the Syrian Democratic Forces conducted a special operation on Saturday, May 19, 2018, which led to the arrest of a group of Daesh terrorists, headed by Adrien Lionel Kayali, nicknamed Abu Osama Al-Faransi, and his wife,” the SDF statement read.
The captured senior commander was involved in the Paris attacks in November 2015, and also had a role in the Nice attack on July 14, 2016, the SDF statement added.
The SDF mentioned Kayali was born in 1983, converted to Islam in 2003 and was influenced by jihadist ideology. He was arrested in France in 2010 on charges of being a member of terrorist organizations and later released.
He joined IS and crossed into Syria on March 6, 2015, through the Tal Abyad border crossing between Turkey and Syria.
After IS lost their de facto capital city of Raqqa in October, Kayali hid there waiting for an opportunity to cross into Turkey and then to Europe. He was arrested last week.
French media have reported the captured man’s name as French citizen Adrien Guihal, but SDF media spokesman, Mustafa Bali, told Reuters Adrien Lionel Kayali and Adrien Guihal were two names used by the same man.
The SDF controls much of the territory east of the Euphrates in Syria’s Deir al-Zor province and drove IS militants from their former de facto capital Raqqa in late 2017.
Editing by Nadia Riva
