“U.S. Central Command forces successfully conducted a helicopter raid in northern Syria, Sept. 23, 2023. Abu Halil al-Fad’ani, an ISIS Syria Operational and Facilitation official, was captured during the raid,” the CENTCOM release said. “Al-Fad’ani was assessed to have relationships throughout the ISIS network in the region.” …

“The capture of ISIS officials like al-Fad’ani increases our ability to locate, target, and remove terrorist from the battlefield,” CENTCOM spokesperson Lt. Col. Troy Garlock said in the release. “USCENTCOM remains committed to the enduring defeat of ISIS.”

[An ‘official’? At first I was prepared to blast CNN for this when seeing their tweet, but that term comes straight out of the CENTCOM press release. The reason why we remain committed to the “enduring defeat of ISIS” is because ISIS is an illegitimate stateless terrorist network, not a legitimate organization of any kind. It does not have “officials”; it has terrorist commanders and terrorists carrying out their commands, and perhaps terrorist funders financing their operations. It’s bad enough when the media uses legitimizing language in describing these groups like “insurgents” and “freedom fighters,” but much worse when DoD ‘officials’ do it. — Ed]