detonated so hardware wouldn t get into any hands on the ground. do we think he, for instance, made the call for the attack in afghanistan, for instance, on our soldiers? reporter: it s a good question, one supposed to senior administration officials and to john kirby. while they re not drewing a direct line between al qureshi and that awful attack outside abby gate at the kabul airport last sum they re killed 13 american service members, they do say that that was conducted by isis-k, an affiliate of isis and ultimately he was the head of isis as we ve heard from some of the top counterterrorism officials in this country. is is has affiliates or offshoots in three dozen countries around the world. there have been concerns about a resurgence of isis in syria, and
that building, among them eight children. on the second floor, that s where the lieutenant to this isis leader had been living along side his wife. we heard from kirby that both of them engaged in a firefight with american special operations forces on the ground there, and at least one of their children is believed to have been killed in that firefight. we heard from secretary austin a short time ago, chuck, acknowledging that it is possible that some innocent civilians were harmed or even killed in this effort. but the details are pretty remarkable about this. at this safe house, we learned from u.s. officials that this isis leader, al qureshi, that he never left the home, that he was basically commanding isis global operations effectively through couriers. so a lot of new and remarkable details about it, not the least of which is that the u.s. forces there had to blow up their helicopter on the ground not after a hard landing but after a landing and it was determined to be unsafe to
you ve been listening to john kirby giving as many details as he can to the raid that took place earlier today. he s been briefing reporters, answering questions following the president s remarks this morning on the raid that took out isis top leader and his deputy. all of this comes as president biden is in new york city at this moment. he s addressing a major domestic issue that could pose a big political risk for democrats in the midterm, rising crime particularly in urban centers. more on, that but we re learning a lot more about this raid in north west syria. it resulted in the depth of the current top isis leader, abu ibrahim hashimi al qureshi. he s been referring to him as haji abdullah, believed to be his gaven name, blew himself up in the raid according to officials, killings himself and his family. according to a senior administration official, u.s. forces were on the ground for nearly two hours.
early in the operation, al qureshi exploded a bomb, killing himself, his wife, and children and others on the third floor. the pentagon confirmed there were no u.s. casualties. some draw comparisons to a 2019 raid which targeted al baghdadi, in which he also detonated an explosive, killing himself. president biden delivered remarks on this raid and the casualties before leaving for new york. our team is still compiling a report, but we do know that as our troops approach to capture the terrorists in a final act of desperate cowardness, with no regard to the lives of his own family or others in the building, he chose to blow himself up, with that vest, to blow up the third floor. this operation is testament to america s reach and capability to take out terrorist threats no matter where they try to hide anywhere in the world. joining me now is peter alexander at the white house, courtney kimby in the briefing and joins us in a moment, and
this individual, al qureshi, was effectively overseeing what was going on in both isis and syria and had tentacles that stretched around the world. let me bring the admiral in here. it feels as if you look at what we ve done with isis in the past ten years, we degrade them a little bit more, a little more, a little more. is this how to look at today and we ll probably have another leader and there will be more of this? or will it continue to be whac-a-mole? it will continue to be whac-a-mole. in the last 20 years since we embarked in forever wars, these are shadowy organizations. new leaders will emerge. it s quite inevitable. i can t tell you the number of times we ve killed the number two or three of al qaeda.