ISIS head al-Baghdadi reported killed
Trump approved the raid by US special forces about a week ago:
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.
Did they wear the vests all the time, just in case?
The operation occurred in northern Syria near Turkey, and the Kurds were involved:
Kurdish fighters appeared Sunday to be claiming a role in the operation that is believed to have killed Islamic State group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi…
SDF commander in chief Gen. Mazloum Kobani appeared to hail the raid early Sunday, claiming “a successful & historical operation due to joint intelligence work with the United States of America.”
What’s all this “appeared” business? Why so tentative, NBC?
Oh, and of course there’s the obligatory “al-Baghdadi didn’t really matter” article at CNN.
Was this raid related to the withdrawal announced just a short while ago that got so much criticism? Was that some sort of head fake and setup to this? There’s this, for example:
“Our sources from inside Syria have confirmed to the Iraqi intelligence team tasked with pursuing Baghdadi that he has been killed alongside his personal bodyguard in Idlib, after his hiding place was discovered when he tried to get his family out of Idlib towards the Turkish border,” said one of the sources.
Trump is going to be speaking at 9 AM, presumably about al-Baghdadi.
UPDATE 9:30 AM
According to Trump, al-Baghdadi was chased by dogs and died in a tunnel, “whimpering, crying, and screaming all the way…He had dragged three of his children” into the tunnel, who were killed by his suicide vest. He was identified positively.
US forces got “highly sensitive material” in the raid.
“We will continue to pursue the remaining ISIS terrorists to their brutal end.”
Trump mentions some of the brutal murders ISIS committed and then publicized.
He thanks Russia, Syria, Turkey, Iraq, and the Kurds, who all participated – and of course, our military. And he emphasizes shame aspects of al-Baghdadi’s death: “He died like a dog. He died like a coward.”
Trump points out that they were very careful not to allow any leaks, and that only a relatively small number of people knew about the raid.
“…towards the [NATO ally] border…”
Discuss!
(Alas, it does appear that Trump has been making lots of people, and organizations, figuratively as well as literally, try to blow themselves to smithereens over the past while.
File under: “Look at what that Bad Orange Man is making ME/US do!!!”
“The Kurds”, “the Iraqis”, “the Turks”, “EVERYONE”
Victory has many fathers, ain’t it?
White House livestream video feed, awaiting for now, starts soon sez here.
It is turning out that Trump’s ordered withdrawal is a smart move in many ways, unrecognized by the geniuses in DC. He has put Putin between Assad and Erdogan. Trump left Putin with the check.
The “safety zone” that Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have recently carved from northern Syria will collapse. Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad rightly considers it a violation of his country’s sovereignty, and if he can persuade his Russian patrons to shut down the zone, Erdogan will threaten another invasion. If Putin then sides with Turkey, Assad will take matters into his own hands. His army may not be fit for fighting armed opponents, but the Kurds are and can act as Assad’s proxies.
If and when such a border fight develops, Putin will find himself between Assad and Erdogan. Whatever he does, he will wind up in that most vulnerable of Middle Eastern positions, the friend of somebody’s enemy.
As the big power in charge, Russia also will be expected to help its Syrian client rebuild the damage from the civil war. Physical reconstruction alone is expected to cost $400-500 billion. This is a bill Trump had no intention of paying — and one more reason he was glad to hand northern Syria to Putin.
Stay tuned for 84 straight hours of crying over the brave, daring men of ISIS.
al-Baghdadi, another splodey-dope who won’t be missed. To be run down by the infidel’s dogs, oh the shame. Crocodile tears are flowing. How is that caliphate working out for you and yours?
Meantime, Iraq cities are still in an uproar of protest, the people saying: “Iranis Go Home!”. They’re fed up with the IRGC and its Iraqi militia shites. They’re fed up with incompetent government, intermittent or no electricity, water services, sewer services, etc. So they revolt. And die for it.
#Iraq (A caution: there are many videos of protest at that link, and some contain violent images of death and injury.)
WaPoo is already running a eulogy for the terrorist.
Obituaries
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, extremist leader of Islamic State, dies at 48
Guess whose side the WaPoo is on.
How pathetic is it that the last sentence of your update is needed. The leaking by anonymous bureaucratic hacks makes doing big things extremely difficult.
Great news;.
It took me possibly as long as a second after I heard this news to realize the media would be working furiously to give this a negative spin. Got on twitter for laughs to see how they’d do it, sure enough – he thanked Russia, he didn’t notify the idiots in the House, this guy isn’t important enough, he’s religious leader, etc. So predictable now.
“Did they wear the vests all the time, just in case?” — Neo
Well, they probably have them immediately at hand, now.
I used to joke that Obama’s academic records were more highly classified than the operations of Seal Team 6, after filmmaker Katherine Bigelow was given extensive access to the details of the bin Laden raid.
While that raid was executed in fairly rapid fashion, it wasn’t super rapid and I don’t think that bin Laden had planned ahead for that specific event. Now, … such people can just watch the movie “Zero Dark Thirty” and be prepared. But hey, Obama got his PR coup and that’s what counts.
The photo from the Situation Room during the operation was interesting. Trump sits at the head of the table.
In the bin Laden op, Obama was sitting on the floor in golf clothes. Obviously a spectator and there has even been speculation that his pic was photoshopped in.
I see the WaPOO has a eulogy for Al-Baghdadi, which is headlined calling the leader of ISIS an “Austere Religious Leader.”
Speaking of Seal Team 6, it could have just been “bad luck,” but I’ve often wondered if they were sold out, and that the helicopter crash that killed 25 members of the Team was made possible because someone told the Taliban the time and place that the helicopter was going to land in Afghanistan.
I’ve often wondered if they were sold out,
Me too. Biden was blabbing all the details.
SanFranNan has her nose (and other places) bent out of shape because SHE (who must be Obeyed) was not told in advance of the raid. Tough!
Trump said he didn’t inform legislators in advance because of the leaks. Pelosi has only herself to blame. If she were a trustworthy Speaker things would be different.
Snow On Pine —
Yeah, “austere religious leader” indeed. I think that’s since been amended, but Jesus.
Given all the leaks in Washington these days, I think that President Trump made a very wise decision to keep the knowledge of this raid very tightly held.
As for notifying members of Congress, why give this information (which they could very well use against you by leaking it and, given past precedent, would likely have leaked it in a heartbeat, with no care at all about the consequences for either U.S. foreign policy or for the soldiers assigned to carry out the raid) to the very people who are trying–in every way they can–to block, denigrate, embarrass, insult, and harass you, and to throw you out of office?
This information likely could have and would have been shared with members of Congress several decades ago but, given the political situation in the present day, it would have been a grave mistake to do so.
I remember reports that Obama waited MONTHS to determine if he should kill Bin Laden.
Trump also said some raids had to be cancelled as Baghdadi didn’t do what they thought he would so he would have given the okay to act as soon as he got the information.
miklos000rosza–Back in the day, this WaPOO eulogy writer would probably have described Hitler as a “forceful German leader.”
Good news on the raid.
Good news on the Trump style – thanking everybody around who he hopes to make deals with later; even deals they may not like at first.
Good news on no leaks.
Good news that Trump blames no early warning to other lawmakers on the prior leaks.
I’m not tired of all the winning.
I’d like more please.
eeyore–According to what I’ve read, Obama called off the raid to kill Bin Laden several times, before he finally, at last, OK’d it.
Not exactly a decisive military leader was Obama.
“I think that’s since been amended, but Jesus.”
Perhaps, but presumably (I have not read the Post article but reliable reports of it) they have not changed the location in the 34th paragraph of the information that Baghdadi was a serial rapist of captive women made sex slaves, leading an army of likewise serial rapists. So, a headline. The Post has turned to shit.
miklos000rosza–According to this reporting the WaPOO eulogy headline changed three times.
First it described Baghdadi as the, “Terrorist in Chief,” then, that description was changed to “Austere Religious Leader” and, then—after what I expect was much backlash—the description now reads “Extremist Leader.” *
Perhaps they will next change that headline to emphasize how Baghdadi liked dogs, pretzels, or the color blue.
* See https://www.mediaite.com/news/wapo-changes-al-baghdadi-headline-after-getting-ripped-for-referring-to-terror-leader-as-austere-religious-scholar/
And “political theorist”
Neo ought to do a Baghdadi obit herself. She could start with the WaPo headline, make plenty of references to his early successes and his “ardent” and “uncompromising” loyalists; and then just start stacking euphemisms, weasel words, and recriminatory references to American foreign policy and western culture, until the pile was high enough.
Of course every attempt should be made to appear evenhanded and not wholly uncritical. Therefore, I would suggest the occasional deployment of terms such as, “sometimes controversial” and “uncertain legacy”.
Snow on Pine; miklos; DNW:
See the end of my latest post, which I wrote before I saw your comments.
The headline the WAPO would like to run. “The inept, unfit, crazy, narcissist-in-chief lucks out………again.” 🙂
Baghdadi didn’t just have sex slaves, he had a young American sex slave, Kayla Mueller, whom he personally raped and tortured. Nonetheless, by all accounts she was brave and offered comfort to others. Mueller survived 18 months.
The Baghdadi mission was named for Kayla Mueller.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/02/15/kayla-mueller-final-months-detailed/23455047/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kayla_Mueller
“Austere religious leader.”
That’s a new, utterly shameless low, even for WaPo.
That Muslims routinely consider psychopathic monsters like Bin Laden and Baghdadi to be respected religious leaders is something I hold against Islam, Islamophobe that I am.
huxley. Note that the two late lamented you mention are considered respected religious leaders by US media and progressives. That”s not the same as Muslims thinking it.
Now, Muslims may well, but the information we have here is about the western left.
‘
Ragip Solyu (2:00pm EST, twitter):
Seems that the headline writers at the WAPO thought it would be an excellent idea to give the “Babylon Bee” a run for its money.
And it worked!
Beyond their wildest (perfervid) infantile imaginations!!
“Discuss!”
https://pjmedia.com/homeland-security/the-isis-caliph-is-dead-but-who-was-protecting-him/
Thanks, Barry Meislin. Robert Spencer is, as usual, probably right. Who knew Baghdadi was there all this time?
Enjoy the view: aerial pic of Baghdadi compound post-raid
In the article Barry M cites: “Given the track record of the Turkish government in aiding the Islamic State, complicity is much more likely than cluelessness. There ought to be a full investigation of Turkey’s involvement, and if the Erdogan regime is definitively found to have been protecting al-Baghdadi, Turkey should be expelled from NATO and the sham alliance with the United States ended.”
I suspect its likely that US intelligence already knew that Turkey was protecting al-Baghdadi. I also suspect that it’s the Pentagon’s arguments against the US ending its ‘alliance’ with Erdogan that Trump finds most persuasive.
It’s clear that for the first several years of the Syrian Civil War, ISIS was Turkey’s instrument for killing Kurds and making them think twice about working toward a regional coalescence of power, especially on Turkey’s southern border.
This was the case until Erdogan’s obvious support for his ISIS proxy became increasingly untenable as the war against ISIS was stepped up by all the major players.
Hence it became impossible for him to continue his covert support of ISIS, which had to be damped down (at least for appearances’ sake).
But Erdogan has always kept the ISIS card waiting and ready to be played when the time was ripe.
The time has now come to play that card, especially since he believes he can always invoke a “national emergency” and/or “plausible deniability” at having played it.
I think it was a nice touch that they chased Baghdadi down with dogs.
I think the writers at the WaPost define the term ‘Useful Idiots’. None of them have fought a war.
Baghdadi was not a scholar. He used his education as a cover for what he really was; a mass genocidal and religious murderer and rapist. He made Charles Manson look like a Boy Scout.
I always wonder what ‘trip’ a person like him is on when through killing and torture you think you are more powerful. Especially when your victims do not stand a chance of fighting back. The President is correct; he was a coward, loser, and (And I would say) a monster.
His death? It should have happen sooner. Good job Mr. President and the team.
Oh, he was a scholar of Qur’an studies, if you want to call that scholarship. The problem with Islam is that it contains teachings which give sociopaths permission, and encouragement, to do the horrible things which Baghdadi and ISIS did. Fortunately, the majority of Muslims in the world do not take these teachings seriously and literally. The risk is that those who do get divine permission to be monsters.
“Fortunately, the majority of Muslims in the world do not take these teachings seriously and literally.” Kate
84+% of Egyptians publicly support the death penalty for apostasy…
They do, Geoffrey Britain, but currently Egypt does not enforce that sharia provision. Many Muslims I knew in Egypt would not publicly deny sharia provisions, but in their personal lives and interactions with non-Muslims they are considerably nicer than the image drawn by strict sharia. Also, I knew many Muslims who were horrified and distressed by what they saw as trends dragging them backwards into the bad old days.