US raid allegedly killed undercover agent instead of IS official

A raid by U.S. forces and a local Syrian group aiming to capture an Islamic State group official instead killed a man who had been working undercover gathering intelligence on the extremists, family members and Syrian officials have told The Associated Press.

The killing in October underscores the complex political and security landscape as the United States begins working with interim Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa in the fight against remnants of IS.

According to relatives, Khaled al-Masoud had been spying on IS for years on behalf of the insurgents led by al-Sharaa and then for al-Sharaa’s interim government, established after the fall of former President Bashar Assad a year ago. Al-Sharaa’s insurgents were mainly Islamists, some connected to al-Qaida, but enemies of IS who often clashed with it over the past decade.

Neither U.S. nor Syrian government officials have commented on al-Masoud’s death, an indication that neither side wants the incident to derail improving ties. Weeks after the Oct. 19 raid, al-Sharaa visited Washington and announced Syria would join the global coalition against IS.

Still, al-Masoud’s death could be “quite a setback” for efforts to combat IS, said Wassim Nasr, a senior research fellow with the Soufan Center, a New York-based think tank focused on security issues.

Photo provided by the al-Masoud family shows Khaled al-Masoud, who was killed at his home in the Damascus countryside. (Courtesy of the al-Masoud family via AP)

Al-Masoud had been infiltrating IS in the southern deserts of Syria known as the Badiya, one of the places where remnants of the extremist group have remained active, Nasr said.

The raid targeting him was a result of “the lack of coordination between the coalition and Damascus,” Nasr said.

In the latest sign of the increasing cooperation, the U.S. Central Command said Sunday that American troops and forces from Syria’s Interior Ministry had located and destroyed 15 IS weapons caches in the south.

The raid occurred in Dumayr, a town east of Damascus on the edge of the desert. At around 3 a.m., residents woke to the sound of heavy vehicles and planes.

Residents said U.S. troops conducted the raid alongside the Syrian Free Army, a U.S.-trained opposition faction that had fought against Assad. The SFA now officially reports to the Syrian Defense Ministry.

Al-Masoud’s cousin, Abdel Kareem Masoud, said he opened his door and saw Humvees with U.S. flags on them.

“There was someone on top of one of them who spoke broken Arabic, who pointed a machine gun at us and a green laser light and told us to go back inside,” he said.

Khaled al-Masoud’s mother, Sabah al-Sheikh al-Kilani, said the forces then surrounded her son’s house next door, where he was with his wife and five daughters, and banged on the door.

A relative of Khaled al-Masoud holds a piece of a munition said to have been used in the raid that killed him, Oct. 28, 2025. (Omar Albam/AP)

Al-Masoud told them that he was with General Security, a force under Syria’s Interior Ministry, but they broke down the door and shot him, al-Kilani said.

They took him away, wounded, al-Kilani said. Later, government security officials told the family he had been released but was in the hospital. The family was then called to pick up his body. It was unclear when he had died.

“How did he die? We don’t know,” his mother said. “I want the people who took him from his children to be held accountable.”

Al-Masoud’s family believes he was targeted based on faulty intelligence provided by members of the Syrian Free Army.

Representatives of the SFA did not respond to requests for comment.

Al-Masoud had worked with al-Sharaa’s insurgent group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, in its northwestern enclave of Idlib before Assad’s fall, his cousin said. Then he returned to Dumayr and worked with the security services of al-Sharaa’s government.

Two Syrian security officials and one political official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly, confirmed that al-Masoud had been working with Syria’s interim government in a security role. Two of the officials said he had worked on combating IS.

Initial media reports on the raid said it had captured an IS official. But U.S. Central Command, which typically issues statements when a U.S. operation kills or captures a member of the extremist group in Syria, made no announcement.

A U.S. defense official, when asked for more information about the raid and its target and whether it had been coordinated with Syria’s government, said, “We are aware of these reports but do not have any information to provide.” The official spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss a sensitive military operation.

Representatives of Syria’s defense and interior ministries, and of U.S. envoy to Syria Tom Barrack, declined to comment.

At its peak in 2015, IS controlled a swath of territory across Iraq and Syria half the size of the United Kingdom. It was notorious for its brutality against religious minorities as well as Muslims not adhering to the group’s extreme interpretation of Islam.

After years of fighting, the U.S.-led coalition broke the group’s last hold on territory in late 2019. Since then, U.S. troops in Syria have been working to ensure IS does not regain a foothold. The U.S. estimates IS still has about 2,500 members in Syria and Iraq. U.S. Central Command last month said the number of IS attacks there had fallen to 375 for the year so far, compared to 1,038 last year.

Fewer than 1,000 U.S. troops are believed to be operating in Syria, carrying out airstrikes and conducting raids against IS cells. They work mainly alongside the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in the northeast and the Syrian Free Army in the south.

Now the U.S. has another partner: the security forces of the new Syrian government.

Airwars, a London-based conflict monitor, has reported 52 incidents in which civilians were harmed or killed in coalition operations in Syria since 2020.

The group classified al-Masoud as a civilian.

Airwars director Emily Tripp said the group has seen “multiple instances of what the U.S. call ‘mistakes,’” including a 2023 case in which the U.S. military announced it had killed an al-Qaida leader in a drone strike. The target later turned out to be a civilian farmer.

It was unclear if the Oct. 19 raid went wrong due to faulty intelligence or if someone deliberately fed the coalition false information. Nasr said that in the past, feuding groups have sometimes used the coalition to settle scores.

“That’s the whole point of having a hotline with Damascus, in order to see who’s who on the ground,” he said.

据美联社报道，美军和叙利亚当地武装组织联合行动，原本旨在抓捕一名伊斯兰国组织官员，结果却误杀了一名秘密收集极端分子情报的男子。死者家属和叙利亚官员证实了这一消息。

10 月份发生的这起杀戮事件凸显了复杂的政治和安全形势，因为美国开始与叙利亚临时总统艾哈迈德·沙拉合作打击伊斯兰国残余势力。

据亲属透露，哈立德·马苏德多年来一直为沙拉领导的叛乱分子从事间谍活动，之后又为沙拉在巴沙尔·阿萨德总统一年前倒台后成立的过渡政府效力。沙拉领导的叛乱分子主要是伊斯兰主义者，其中一些与基地组织有关联，但他们是“伊斯兰国”的敌人，过去十年间双方冲突不断。

美国和叙利亚政府官员均未就马苏德之死发表评论，这表明双方都不希望这一事件破坏正在改善的两国关系。10月19日袭击事件发生数周后，沙拉访问了华盛顿，并宣布叙利亚将加入打击“伊斯兰国”的全球联盟。

不过，总部位于纽约、专注于安全问题的智库苏凡中心的高级研究员瓦西姆·纳斯尔表示，马苏德的死可能会对打击伊斯兰国的努力造成“相当大的挫折”。

这张由马苏德家族提供的照片显示的是哈立德·马苏德，他于大马士革郊区的家中遇害。（照片由马苏德家族通过美联社提供）

纳斯尔说，马苏德一直在叙利亚南部被称为巴迪亚的沙漠地区渗透“伊斯兰国”组织，该地区是极端组织残余势力仍然活跃的地方之一。

纳斯尔表示，针对他的突袭是“联军与大马士革之间缺乏协调”的结果。

作为双方合作日益加强的最新迹象，美国中央司令部周日表示，美军和叙利亚内政部部队在南部地区发现并摧毁了 15 个“伊斯兰国”武器库。

这次突袭发生在杜迈尔，这是大马士革以东、沙漠边缘的一个小镇。凌晨3点左右，居民们被重型车辆和飞机的轰鸣声惊醒。

居民称，美军与叙利亚自由军联合发动了此次突袭。叙利亚自由军是一支由美国训练的反对派武装，曾与阿萨德政权作战。目前，叙利亚自由军正式隶属于叙利亚国防部。

马苏德的表弟阿卜杜勒·卡里姆·马苏德说，他打开门，看到几辆悍马车上插着美国国旗。

他说：“其中一个人身上压着一个会说蹩脚阿拉伯语的人，他用机枪和绿色激光笔指着我们，让我们回到里面去。”

哈立德·马苏德的母亲萨巴赫·谢赫·基拉尼说，随后军队包围了她儿子隔壁的房子，当时他和妻子以及五个女儿都在那里，军队还猛烈地敲打着房门。

2025年10月28日，哈立德·马苏德的一名亲属手持一块据称是导致他丧生的袭击中使用的弹药碎片。（奥马尔·阿尔巴姆/美联社）

基拉尼说，马苏德告诉他们，他是叙利亚内政部下属部队——总安全部队的成员，但他们破门而入，开枪打死了他。

基拉尼说，他们把他带走了，当时他受了伤。后来，政府安全官员告诉他的家人，他已经出院，但仍在医院接受治疗。之后，家人接到通知去认领他的遗体。目前尚不清楚他何时去世。

“他是怎么死的？我们不知道，”他的母亲说。“我希望那些夺走他生命的人受到法律的制裁。”

马苏德的家人认为，他之所以成为袭击目标，是因为叙利亚自由军成员提供了错误的情报。

SFA的代表没有回应置评请求。

据他的表弟说，在阿萨德政权垮台之前，马苏德曾在沙拉领导的叛乱组织“沙姆解放组织”位于其西北部飞地伊德利卜的活动。之后，他返回杜迈尔，并在沙拉政府的安全部门工作。

两名叙利亚安全官员和一名政治官员证实，马苏德曾以安全官员的身份在叙利亚临时政府工作。由于未获授权公开置评，他们要求匿名。其中两名官员表示，他曾参与打击“伊斯兰国”的行动。

最初媒体报道称，此次突袭行动抓获了一名“伊斯兰国”官员。但美国中央司令部通常情况下会在美军在叙利亚的行动中击毙或抓获极端组织成员时发表声明，但此次并未发布任何公告。

当被问及此次突袭行动及其目标，以及是否与叙利亚政府协调时，一位美国国防官员表示：“我们注意到这些报道，但目前没有任何信息可以提供。” 这位官员要求匿名，以便讨论这项敏感的军事行动。

叙利亚国防部和内政部的代表以及美国驻叙利亚特使汤姆·巴拉克均拒绝置评。

2015年鼎盛时期，伊斯兰国控制了伊拉克和叙利亚的大片领土，面积相当于英国的一半。该组织因残暴对待宗教少数群体以及不认同其极端伊斯兰教义的穆斯林而臭名昭著。

经过多年的战斗，以美国为首的联军于2019年底打破了该组织在叙利亚的最后据点。此后，驻叙利亚美军一直在努力确保“伊斯兰国”不会卷土重来。美国估计，“伊斯兰国”在叙利亚和伊拉克仍有约2500名成员。美国中央司令部上个月表示，今年迄今为止，“伊斯兰国”在叙利亚和伊拉克发动的袭击数量已降至375起，而去年同期为1038起。

据信，在叙利亚境内执行任务的美军人数不足1000人，他们主要负责对“伊斯兰国”残余势力进行空袭和突袭。他们主要与东北部库尔德人领导的叙利亚民主力量以及南部叙利亚自由军并肩作战。

现在美国又多了一个合作伙伴：叙利亚新政府的安全部队。

总部位于伦敦的冲突观察组织 Airwars 报告称，自 2020 年以来，在叙利亚的联军行动中发生了 52 起平民受伤或死亡事件。

该组织将马苏德归类为平民。

“空袭战争”组织负责人艾米丽·特里普表示，该组织目睹了“多起美国所谓的‘错误’”，其中包括2023年的一起事件：美军宣布在一次无人机袭击中击毙了一名基地组织领导人，但事后证明目标是一名平民农民。

目前尚不清楚10月19日的突袭行动失败是由于情报错误，还是有人故意向联军提供虚假信息。纳斯尔表示，过去一些敌对团体曾利用联军来清算旧账。

他说：“这就是与大马士革开通热线的意义所在，以便了解当地的情况。”