October 27, 2019 – In Breaking News – Newsweek
The United States military has conducted a special operations raid targeting one of its most high-value targets, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State militant group (ISIS), Newsweek has learned.
President Donald Trump approved the mission nearly a week before it took place.
Amid reports Saturday of U.S. military helicopters over the Syria’s northwestern Idlib province, a senior Pentagon official familiar with the operation and Army official briefed on the matter told Newsweek that Baghdadi was the target of the top-secret operation in the last bastion of the country’s Islamist-dominated opposition, a faction that has clashed with ISIS in recent years.
(Intelligence zeroed in on Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi about a month ago, with the operation ramping up in earnest two weeks ago. President Trump and advisers huddled in the situation room as the attack began, and he described what happened next in extreme detail in a live address to the American public. Courtesy of ABC News and YouTube. Posted on Oct 27, 2019.)
A U.S. Army official briefed on the results of the operation told Newsweek that Baghdadi was killed in the raid, and the Defense Department told the White House they have “high confidence” that the high-value target killed was Baghdadi, but further verification is pending DNA and biometric testing.
The senior Pentagon official said there was a brief firefight when U.S. forces entered the compound in Idlib’s Barisha village and that Baghdadi then killed himself by detonating a suicide vest.
Family members were present. According to Pentagon sources, no children were harmed in the raid but two Baghdadi wives were killed after detonating their own explosive vests.
Members of the Joint Special Operations Command’s Delta Team carried out Saturday’s high-level operation after receiving actionable intelligence, according to sources familiar with the operation.
The location raided by special operations troops had been under surveillance for some time.
(Mark Esper is interviewed on “This Week” about the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Courtesy of ABC News and YouTube. Posted on Oct 27, 2019.)
The senior Pentagon official told Newsweek that the compound in which Baghdadi was located was then taken out with an airstrike in order to prevent the site from becoming a shrine to the leader.
Turkey, a NATO ally backing local insurgents, was not notified prior to the operation, the official said.
On Saturday night, after the operation had concluded, President Trump tweeted: “Something very big has just happened!”
The White House announced later that the president will make a “major statement” Sunday at 9:00 a.m.
Something very big has just happened!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 27, 2019
Baghdadi, an Iraqi national, is an ultraconservative cleric who became active in the Islamist insurgency against U.S. forces following the 2003 invasion that toppled Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
He was held by U.S. forces in the detention centers of Abu Ghraib and Camp Bucca, where a number of future jihadi leaders rubbed shoulders while in military custody.
(Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, a former university professor, took the reins of ISIS in 2014, few had heard of the group or its new leader. That changed fast. Courtesy of CBS Evening News and YouTube. Posted on Oct 27. 2019.)
He went on to join Al-Qaeda in Iraq, rising up the ranks of the violent group as it merged with others to form the Islamic State of Iraq and eventually inherited its leadership in 2010, when his predecessor was killed in a joint U.S.-Iraqi operation.
As the group took advantage of a U.S. military exit to further expand, he renamed the group to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham—or the Levant—better known as ISIS, in 2013, seeking to expand to neighboring Syria, where a civil war was raging.
(President Trump said planning for the raid that killed Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the founder and head of ISIS began two weeks ago. CBS News National Security Consultant and retired U.S. Army Colonel Jeff McCausland joins CBSN to discuss what goes into planning such a dangerous mission. Courtesy of CBS News and YouTube. Posted on Oct. 27, 2019.)
Continue reading… TRUMP APPROVES SPECIAL OPS RAID TARGETING ISIS LEADER BAGHDADI, MILITARY SAYS HE’S DEAD
Thank you to @MarthaRaddatz and @TerryMoran for a job well done! pic.twitter.com/mcHjqX1K2L
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 27, 2019
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