By OMAR ALBAM and ABBY SEWELL, Associated Press

DUMAYR, Syria (AP) — 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.

This undated handout photo provided by the al-Masoud family shows Khaled al-Masoud, who was killed at his home during a raid in the town of al-Dumayr in the Damascus countryside. (Courtesy of the al-Masoud family via AP)

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.

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.

Confusion around the raid

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.

Sabah al-Sheikh al-Kilani, the mother of Khaled al-Masoud, points to bullet holes in the wall of her son’s home after he was killed during a raid in the town of al-Dumayr, in the Damascus countryside, Syria, Oct. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Omar Albam)

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.”

Faulty intelligence

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.

Increased coordination could prevent mistakes

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.

By OMAR FARUK, Associated Press

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — Somali migrant Mohamed Abdi Awale endured horrors on an ill-fated journey across Africa to seek a better life in the West — but he’s determined to try again one day, even aiming for the U.S. despite increasing restrictions.

Awale is one of 165 Somali migrants recently repatriated after being detained in Libya, where the International Organization for Migration says those caught on journeys to Europe face “unacceptable and inhumane conditions.”

Mohamed Abdi Awale, who says he was tortured by smugglers while trying to reach Europe, is helped by his mother at their home in Mogadishu, Somalia, Monday, Nov. 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Farah Abdi Warsameh)

Awale undertook a more than 3,100-mile journey, leaving Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, to cross Kenya, Uganda, South Sudan and Sudan.

He was captured by smugglers near the Sudan-Libyan border and taken to the Sahara oasis town of Kufra, where captors filmed him being tortured in a bid to extract a ransom from his family.

“Torture became normal,” Awale said. “If you failed to pay, they beat you until you fainted. Some people lost their minds. Others didn’t survive.”

Unable to afford the ransom, his mother, Hawo Elmo Rage, turned to social media, pleading with Somalis at home and abroad to help her save her son.

“They told me to send the money or they would take his life,” Rage said. She ultimately raised $17,000, enough to free him.

Awale was released from Kufra and put in a car bound for the Mediterranean coast with other migrants. After their vehicle broke down, the group trekked for more than two weeks, facing starvation and dehydration.

“I thought we would die there,” Awale said.

Mohamed Abdi Awale, who says he was captured and tortured by smugglers while attempting to reach Europe, shows his mother wounds during an interview with The Associated Press in Mogadishu, Somalia, Monday, Nov. 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Farah Abdi Warsameh)

The group was then detained outside of Tripoli, and Awale spent a month in prison in the coastal town of Sirte and another two months in detention in Tripoli before his repatriation to Somalia in November.

Awale became one of hundreds of thousands of Somalis that have fled the country in more than three decades of civil war, according to UNHCR, the U.N. refugee agency, which estimates that another 3.5 million people are displaced within Somalia itself.

While most Somali refugees live in neighboring countries like Kenya, according to UNHCR, many like Awale have been inspired to seek a future in the West. Awale said that he dreamed of moving to the U.S. since he was a child.

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“I want him to stay,” his mother said. “But I know he wishes for a better life. I pray God gives him a safe future— not the dangerous one he found.”

Changes to immigration policy this year under Trump administration changed the calculus of migrants like Awale. U.S. President Donald Trump banned travel to the U.S. by citizens of Somalia and 11 other countries in June — so Awale set his sights on Europe.

Awale remains hopeful that he will reach the U.S. one day, despite anti-Somali sentiment from the White House and a further tightening of immigration restrictions for Somalis.

The White House also announced this week that it was pausing all immigration applications for people from 19 countries, including Somalia.

“My dream was America, but I felt like Trump closed that door,” Awale said. “Maybe after Trump’s term ends.”

The Associated Press receives financial support for global health and development coverage in Africa from the Gates Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

By REBECCA SANTANA, DAKE KANG and GISELA SALOMON, Associated Press

When President Donald Trump suspended the refugee program on day one of his current administration, thousands of people around the world who had been so close to a new life in America found themselves abandoned.

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Many had already sold possessions or ended leases in preparation for travel. They had submitted reams of documents supporting their cases, been interviewed by U.S. officials and in many cases already had tickets to fly to America.

As part of Trump’s crackdown on both legal and illegal migration, the Republican president has upended the decades-old refugee program that has served as a beacon for those fleeing war and persecution. In October, he resumed the program but set a historic low of refugee admissions at just 7,500 — mostly white South Africans.

A litany of new restrictions was announced after an Afghan national became the suspect in the shooting of two National Guard members last week. The Trump administration also plans a review of refugees let in during the Democratic Biden administration. Trump’s administration has cited economic and national security concerns for its policy changes.

About 600,000 people were being processed to come to the U.S. as refugees around the world when the program was halted, according to the administration. Dozens of white South Africans have been let in this year. But only about 100 others have been admitted as a result of a lawsuit by advocates seeking to restart the refugee program, said Mevlüde Akay Alp, a lawyer arguing the case.

“It’s important that we don’t abandon those families and that we don’t abandon the thousands of people who were relying on the promise of coming here as refugees,” said Akay Alp, with the International Refugee Assistance Project.

The Associated Press spoke to three families whose lives have been thrown into disarray because of the changing policies.

A family separated by tightened restrictions

The Dawoods had waited years for the opportunity to come to the U.S. After fleeing civil war in Syria, they settled in northern Iraq. They hoped to find a home that could provide better medical care for a daughter who had fallen from the fourth floor of the family’s apartment building.

After they were accepted as refugees to the U.S., son Ibrahim and his sister Ava relocated to New Haven, Connecticut, in November 2024. His parents and one of his brothers were scheduled to fly in January.

Syrian refugee Abdulilah Amin Dawoud, 73, poses for a picture at his home in Irbil, Iraq, Nov. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Farid Abdulwahed)

But just two days before they were to board their flight, mother Hayat Fatah fainted at a medical check and her departure was postponed. Mohammed, another sibling, didn’t want to leave his parents behind.

“I said: ‘This is it. The chance is gone.’ But I had to stay with my father and mother,” Mohammed said.

Nearly a year later, he and his parents are still waiting. Without a residency card, Mohammed can’t work or travel outside of their home in the city of Irbil. The family gets by on money sent from relatives abroad.

Mohammed had dreams for his hoped-for new life in America: starting a business or finishing his studies to become a petroleum engineer; getting married and building a family.

“Whether it was now, a year from now, two years later or four years, I will wait and hope that I will go,” he said.

In America, Ibrahim often wakes up early to tutor people online before going to his job as a math teacher at a private school, and then he takes care of his sister when he gets home. He said his mother often cries when they talk because she wishes she were in America to help care for her daughter.

Ibrahim said one solace has been the welcome he’s received in the U.S. Volunteers have stepped in to take him and his sister to frequent doctor appointments and helped them adjust to their new lives.

“I really appreciate the kindness of the people here,” he said.

After a decade in limbo, a Chinese pastor wonders when his turn will come

Chinese Christian Lu Taizhi fled to Thailand more than a decade ago, fearing persecution for his beliefs. He’s lived in legal limbo since, waiting to be resettled in the United States.

Lu Taizhi, a Chinese Christian who is waiting to be resettled in the United States, points to the webpage of the International Rescue Committee, which is under maintenance and not operational in Ban Wawee village, Chiang Rai Province, Thailand, Nov. 27, 2025. (AP Photo/ Tian Macleod Ji)

Lu said he has long admired the U.S. for what he calls its Christian character — a place where he feels he and his family “can seek freedom.” He said he was disappointed that people like him and his family who applied for refugee status legally face so many difficulties in going to the U.S.

“I oppose illegal immigration. Many are fake refugees, or illegal immigrants, they’ve never faced oppression. I’m opposed to this,” Lu said. “But I hope America can accept people like us, real refugees who faced real oppression. … It’s really disappointing.”

Lu comes from a long lineage of dissent: He was born into a family branded as “hostile elements” by the Chinese Communist Party for its land ownership and ties to a competing political party. A teacher and poet, Lu grew interested in history banned by the Chinese state, penning tributes to the bloody 1989 Tiananmen crackdown on pro-democracy protests in Beijing.

In 2004, Lu was arrested after police found poems and essays he secretly published criticizing Chinese politics and the education system. After his release, Lu became a Christian and began preaching, drawing scrutiny from local authorities. Year after year, officers knocked on his door, warning him not to organize protests or publish commentary criticizing the Party.

With Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s rise to power, controls tightened. When Beijing arrested hundreds of rights lawyers in 2015, Lu took his family and fled, worried police would come for him. After traveling across Southeast Asia, Lu and his family settled in Thailand, where they applied for refugee status with the United Nations.

Eight years later, the U.N. notified Lu the U.S. had accepted his application. But their first flight, in April 2024, was postponed because Lu’s sons’ passports had expired. A second, scheduled for Jan. 22, 2025, was canceled without explanation, and the most recent one, scheduled for Feb. 26, was canceled shortly after Trump’s inauguration. His application has been put on hold indefinitely, Lu said.

Today, Lu is scraping a meager living as a teacher and pastor in Northern Thailand. He’s separated from his wife and children in Bangkok, Thailand’s capital, but says he has no choice if he wants to earn money and support his family.

“I am very supportive of all of Trump’s policies because I think only President Trump can dismantle the CCP,” Lu said, using an acronym referring to the Chinese Communist Party. “So I don’t have any complaints. I just wait silently.”

‘I don’t want to lose her’

Louis arrived in the United States as a refugee in September 2024. He left his wife and two children in East Africa, hoping they could soon be reunited in the U.S.

Louis, a Congolese refugee, stands for an anonymous portrait at the International Rescue Committee (IRC) office, Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025, in Louisville, Ky. (AP Photo/Jon Cherry)

But that dream faded a few months later with Trump’s return to the presidency.

Louis, who insisted on being identified only by his first name out of concern that speaking publicly could complicate his case, was told in January that a request he had made to bring his family to the U.S. had been frozen due to changes in refugee policies.

Now, the family members live thousands of miles apart without knowing when they will be reunited. His wife, Apolina, and the children, 2 and 3 years old, are in a refugee camp in Uganda. Louis is in Kentucky.

“I don’t want to lose her, and she does not want to lose me,” said Louis, who resettled in Kentucky with the help of the International Rescue Committee. “The hope that I had went slowly down. I thought that we would never meet again,” he said referring to the moment when he received the notice.

Louis and Apolina’s families applied for refugee status after fleeing war in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Louis’ application, initiated by his parents, was approved, Apolina’s, made separately by her parents, was not. They hoped if Louis applied for family reunification in the U.S., that would ease the way to bring over Apolina and the two children.

Apolina thought that, as the wife of a refugee, it would take her no more than one year to reunite with her husband, who now works in an appliance factory and has already applied for permanent residency.

The separation hasn’t been easy for her and the children, who live in a tent in the refugee camp. The younger one, who was 7 months old when Louis left, cries every time he sees his father in a video call. The older one keeps asking where Louis is and when he will see him.

Apolina fears that as time drags on, the children will forget their father.

“I feel terrible because I miss my husband very much,” said Apolina in a phone interview from Uganda. “I pray for him that God enables him to be patient until we meet again.”

Santana reported from Washington, Kang from Beijing and Salomon from Miami. Associated Press writers Evelyne Musambi in Nairobi, Kenya, and Salar Salim in Irbil, Iraq, contributed to this report.

St. Paul police are investigating a fatal shooting that happened in the Payne-Phalen area Thursday night.

Police responded to a report of shots fired in the 900 block of Edgerton Street just before 9:15 p.m. and found a man with an apparent gunshot injury to the upper torso, according to a statement from police.

Officers provided first aid to the man and called for St. Paul Fire Department Medics, who took over with medical attention. They brought him to Regions Hospital, where he was pronounced dead a short time later.

Police had not announced an arrest as of early Friday morning. Investigators are working to determine the circumstances of the shooting and the department’s Forensic Services Unit processed the scene for evidence, the police statement said.

Police said they will release the victim’s name after the Ramsey County Medical Examiner’s Office confirms his identity and cause of death.

The man’s homicide was the 13th of the year in St. Paul.

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