US conducts raid on Daesh in Syria, kills top official

U.S. personnel overnight killed a key Islamic State leader in a raid in eastern Syria, the White House said Saturday morning, Fox News reported.

The U.S. team, based in Iraq, killed leader Abu Sayyaf and captured his wife, Umm Sayyaf, said National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan.

Abu Sayyaf was a senior ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) leader whose roles included overseeing illicit oil and gas operations -- key sources of revenue for the terror group, according to the White House. He also was allegedly involved with the group's military operations.

No U.S. personnel was killed or injured during the operation, a departure from the U.S-led air strikes on ISIL militants in the region.

Sayyaf purportedly died in a firefight.

Umm Sayyaf, whom U.S. intelligence officials suspect also was an ISIL member and played an important role in terror activities, was after capture taken for questioning to a U.S. military facility in Iraq.

The commando operation also led to the freeing of a young Yezidi woman who appears to have been held as a slave by the couple.

The White House said President Obama authorized the operation as soon as he and his national security team developed sufficient intelligence and were confident the mission could be carried out successfully.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter said he ordered U.S. Special Operations Forces into Syria’s al-Amr region to capture Sayyaf and his wife.

ISIL has over roughly the past year made a swift and unexpected rise in Syria and Iraq, taking territories and using captured assets to finance its deadly operations, which have including the online publishing of beheadings.

Syrian state media earlier reported that government forces killed at least 40 ISIL fighters, including a senior commander in charge of oil fields, in an attack Saturday on the country's largest oil field -- held by ISIL.

It identified the commander as Abu al Teem al Saudi.