we spotted this not long ago from sebastian usher.ng special forces have mounted a raid against so—called islamic state. he is telling is that the raid was on a sunday and in the east of syria. we can call our journalist right in the middle of work. sebastian kehl et al is more. we have had confirmed in the past few hours that the raid has happened. we haven't had much more detail. the raid took place on sunday in this area that is largely, controlled by is. the elite force was tasked with going after the leaders of is and intelligence gathering. activists on the ground have reported that around 25 jihadists were killed in the operation. others have said it is a gross exaggeration. eyewitness reports in the past day or so have said that the operation began on sunday afternoon, at least four helicopters were involved. the special operations forces were parachuted down and they may have intercepted a car that they believed to have is leaders in it. there is some dispute what happened after that. whether it was a case of taking out and k

let's speak to our middle east analyst, sebastian usher.antime the israeli prime minister said the driver is a suspected... was a suspected supporter of the islamic state. yes, he hasn't suggested whether it is known in the driver had links or whether it is a supposition based on the method he used, that he used a truck as we have seen in other attacks recently. that's probably where it stands at the moment and we haven't yet seen any real involvement or claim by islamic state of attacks. it has not really crystallised into a real threat, but of course the potential was there. and the way in which it was worded was that it was a palestinian supporter of is. essentially what is does is lay out its ideology and encourages them to take action by themselves. we've seen this wave of attacks by palestinians, almost a year and attacks by palestinians, almost a yearand a attacks by palestinians, almost a year and a half, often using knives and guns and occasionally vehicles like this although that is much rarer and that has sown a new form of fear

sebastian usher, middle east a nalyst, sebastian usher, middle east analyst, thanks for that.council tax by fifteen per cent — to fund improved social care in the county. the council says it has a "huge gap" in its budget as a result of cuts by westminster. the area includes the constituencies of the chancellor philip hammond and the health secretaryjeremy hunt. we can talk to alex wilde, research director of the taxpayers alliance, which campaigns for lower taxation. thanks for being with us, what are your thoughts on this referendum, then? 15% rise, how would you vote? i would vote against it and i think a lot of people will be voting against it. it's the first time an actual council has tried this but the only sort of thing we've got to go on, how this may go, was a referendum in bedfordshire, police and crime commission wanted 15% increase to their precept and it was rejected by 70—30. i don't think it's going to be a particularly competitive referendum but if anyone was going to do it, it was going to be surrey council. they've increased council tax in 19 of the past 20 y