The U.S. military played no role in the operation inside Gaza that resulted in the death of Palestinian Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, considered the architect of the Oct. 7 rampage in southern Israel where some 1,200 people were killed and about 200 others taken hostage, a Pentagon spokesman said Thursday.
For more than a year, U.S. special forces troops and intelligence personnel have been working alongside their Israeli counterparts to track down hostages, including American nationals. But no U.S. forces took part in the firefight late Wednesday where Mr. Sinwar’s body was later discovered, U.S. officials said.
“This was an Israeli operation. U.S. forces were not directly involved,” Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, a Defense Department spokesman, told reporters at the Pentagon.
He said the U.S. has a “small number” of special operations troops on the scene in Israel to advise IDF personnel on hostage recovery efforts.
“By providing them this information, the Israelis have been able to go and look for hostages — as well as find those who have been holding them hostage, to include Sinwar,” Gen. Ryder said.
Citing operational security, Gen. Ryder declined to clarify the kind of military or intelligence support Israel has received from the U.S. He did reveal that U.S. Army air defense troops assigned to a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery have arrived in Israel to help protect the country from ballistic missile attacks from Iran and other adversaries, a move approved by President Biden earlier this week.
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“It is going to be fully operations-capable in the near future. I’m not going to get into the specific dates for operational security,” he said. “It has been integrated into the Israeli air defense as well as our broader U.S. efforts regionally to support the defense of Israel.”
• Mike Glenn can be reached at mglenn@washingtontimes.com.
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