Vox Sentences - ISIS leader killed in US raid

ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi al-Qurayshi was killed in a US raid in Syria, Biden says; the Bank of England is raising interest rates amid global inflation concerns.

Tonight's Sentences was written by Ellen Ioanes.

ISIS leader killed in Special Forces operation

Abdulaziz Ketaz/AFP via Getty Images

• US Special Forces on Wednesday conducted a raid on the location of ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi al-Qurayshi in northwestern Syria on Wednesday night. US President Joe Biden said on Thursday that al-Qurayshi died after he detonated explosives that also killed members of his family, including children. [Reuters / Suleiman Al-Khalidi and Nandita Bose]
• Al-Qurayshi remained a mysterious figure, even after he took over leadership of the group in 2019, after the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, also during a US raid. Al-Quraryshi had been involved in jihadi groups since 2003; Biden said the militant had been responsible for the mass killings of Iraqi Yazidis in 2014, as well as an attempted jailbreak in the northeastern Syrian city of Hasaka last month. [AP / Bassam Mroue]
• Al-Qurayshi was killed in Idlib province, where his predecessor also met his end, near the Turkish border. Residents in the area reported hearing the machine gun fire and helicopters of US forces, and first responders reportedly retrieved the bodies of 13 people from the scene, including four children and six women. [Washington Post / Ellen Francis, Adela Suliman and Miriam Berger]
• American Special Forces reportedly played loud messages in Arabic, telling the occupants of the multi-level building in Atmeh to surrender; instead, the US said that al-Qurayshi detonated the device that killed him and members of his family. However, it’s not clear if all of the reported civilian deaths in the operation were caused by that explosion. [Al Jazeera]
• Biden said that no Americans were killed during the operation, and that it was designed to minimize civilian casualties. Initial reports say the operation began after midnight on Thursday morning, and lasted about three hours. [NYT / Eric Schmitt and Ben Hubbard]

Bank of England raises rates for the second time since December

• Britain’s central bank, the Bank of England, raised interest rates from .25 percent to .5 percent on Thursday, as inflation nears 7 percent. It’s the first time in 17 years that the bank has raised rates at consecutive policy meetings. [New York Times / Eshe Nelson]
• A slim minority — four of the nine members of the Monetary Policy Committee — wanted an even steeper rate hike, to .75 percent. But analysts now anticipate that the central bank may raise rates to at least 1 percent come May to get a grip on prices as inflation soars. [FT / Chris Giles and Tommy Stubbington]
• The decision caused a spike in the pound’s valuation against the dollar, which closed trading around $1.36. But it also means that UK household disposable income will shrink by about 2 percent this year — the biggest drop in 30 years. [Guardian / Phillip Inman and Richard Partington]
• Soaring fuel and electricity costs account for much of the price increases; energy costs have risen 54 percent recently, and overall prices are increasing faster than wages can keep pace. The Bank of England’s rate hike decision, coupled with the effects of inflation, will hit some households especially hard. [BBC / Szu Ping Chan]

The US says Russia is planning a false-flag operation as a pretext for war with Ukraine. [AP / Aamer Madhani, Lorne Cook, and Suzan Fraser]

• South Africa’s Afrigen Biologics has made a Covid-19 vaccine similar to Moderna’s mRNA offering, the first to be made using just publicly available sequence data and without the original developer's assistance. [Reuters / Wendell Roelf]
• US service industry activity dropped to an 11-month low in January, due to the rise of the omicron variant. [Bloomberg / Jordan Yadoo]
• Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi warned US athletes not to anger the Chinese government by protesting while at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. [Al Jazeera]

“I would say to athletes, ‘You’re there to compete. Do not risk incurring the anger of the Chinese government, because they are ruthless.’”

[Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, discussing the human rights abuses of the Chinese government against the people of Tibet and Hong Kong, and  Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities, ahead of the Winter Olympics]

At least in schools. [Spotify]

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