NEW: U.S. Military Launches Daring Mission Against ISIS

The U.S. Military carried out a raid in Northern Syria on Tuesday that successfully neutralized a senior ISIS figure who was poised to become the militant group’s leader in the war-torn nation, the Pentagon announced Wednesday.

A key ISIS financial officer was also killed in the operation, a senior Defense Department official told Fox News. Both men had been actively planning attacks against in Iraq and Syria over the last several months.

No U.S. service members were killed or injured in the operation, and there were no injuries reported to civilians.

The unnamed official described the raid as a “successful operation” targeting a senior ISIS member assessed to be a strong candidate to assume the role of ISIS Syria Emir. The Pentagon assessed that his ascension would pose a direct threat to the United States and coalition partners, as well as the extremely fragile Syrian government.

The operation was conducted as part of ongoing counterterrorism operations in the region that have been ongoing in varying degrees of intensity over the past decade. “We will continue to pursue ISIS terrorists with unwavering determination throughout the region,” the official told Fox News.

ISIS has maintained a significantly weakened presence in Syria after previously controlling vast amounts of territory across Northern Syria and Iraq’s Anbar province at the height of the Syrian Civil War. The militant group remains a threat in the region and has been responsible for a number of attacks on government forces and other autonomous Syrian factions since 2019.

President Trump has directed a number of strikes on ISIS targets in Syria and elsewhere since returning to office. Back in February, the U.S. carried out airstrikes that killed a number of senior ISIS figures in Somalia.

“This morning I ordered precision Military air strikes on the Senior ISIS Attack Planner and other terrorists he recruited and led in Somalia. These killers, who we found hiding in caves, threatened the United States and our Allies,” the president announced in a social media post at the time. “The strikes destroyed the caves they live in, and killed many terrorists without, in any way, harming civilians.”

The Islamic State has ramped up its presence in East Africa in recent years. In West Africa, the Nigeria-based Boko Haram militant group officially merged with ISIS in 2015 and has been responsible for hundreds of deadly terrorist attacks and a number of insurgencies in Nigeria, Chad, Mali, Niger and Cameroon. The ISIS presence in East Africa is not as pronounced, though it has been growing.