US forces rehearsed the helicopter raid over and over, hoping to capture Islamic State's leader on the third floor of a residential building in a Syrian town on the Turkish border, where he was holed up with his family.

But before they could reach him, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi al-Quraishi detonated a suicide bomb, triggering a large explosion that blew mangled bodies - including his own - out of the building into the streets outside...