ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has been confirmed dead by Donald Trump, following a secretive military operation.
“Last night the
United States brought the world’s number one terrorist leader to justice. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is dead,” Trump told reporters on Sunday.
The US president hinted at the news hours earlier, tweeting that “something very big just happened”, however did not offer any more details ahead of Sunday’s
White House press conference.
Reports from several US news sources published on Saturday evening suggested the leader had been killed ahead of Trump’s confirmation.
The secret operation targeting Baghdadi was reportedly approved by Trump earlier this month. There were reports Saturday of US military helicopters over Syria’s northwestern Idlib province.
A team from the Joint Special Operations Command carried out the operation after receiving actionable intelligence, sources told Newsweek. The location had been under surveillance for some time. A senior US defence official told
CNN that the CIA had assisted in locating the
ISIS leader. Al Baghdadi was born Ibrahim Awwad Ibrahim Ali al-Badri al-Samarrai in 1971 in Samarra, Iraq, and was first detained by US forces in
Iraq in February 2004 when he was sent to Bucca
prison because of anti-US militant activity, IS-affiliated websites report. He was released 10 months later, after which he joined the al-Qaida branch in Iraq of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
He later assumed control of the group, known at the time as the
Islamic State of Iraq.
Under his watch, a group known as the Nusra Front were merged with Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
News of his death has been reported multiple times over the years, however these reports have never been confirmed.
In 2017,
Russian officials said there was a “high probability” he had been killed in a Russian airstrike on the outskirts of Raqqa, however US officials later said they believed he was still alive. Related... A Brief(ish) Guide To A Hugely Dramatic Week In The
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