‘His last moment to live’
TERROR LEADER DIED WHIMPERING, CRYING IN TUNNEL, TRUMP SAYS
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday that ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi died “whimpering and crying” in a raid by U.S. special forces in the Idlib region of northwest Syria.
In a televised address from the White House, Trump said the terror boss died alongside three of his children when he detonated an explosives-laden vest after fleeing into a dead-end tunnel during the attack. A DNA test conducted on site confirmed that Baghdadi had been killed, Trump said.
But how did this sequence of events unfold?
The path to Baghdadi’s demise was full of frustrations for Western and Arab intelligence agencies, who have pored over clues to the whereabouts of a man who imposed a reign of terror across a large swath of Syria and Iraq, ordering his men to carry out mass executions and beheadings. He is also responsible for gruesome attacks across five continents in the name of his ultra-fanatic version of Islam.
In their hunt for al-Baghdadi, Iraqi intelligence teams secured a break in February 2018 after one of the ISIL leader’s top aides gave them information on how he escaped capture for so many years.
Baghdadi would sometimes hold strategy talks with his commanders in moving minibuses packed with vegetables to avoid detection, Ismael al-Ethawi told officials after he was arrested by Turkish authorities and handed to the Iraqis.
“Ethawi gave valuable information which helped the Iraqi multi-security agencies team complete the missing pieces of the puzzle of Baghdadi’s movements and places he used to hide,” one of the Iraqi security officials said.
“Ethawi gave us details on five men, including him, whom were meeting Baghdadi inside Syria and the different locations they used,” he said.
Another turning point came earlier this year during a joint operation in which U.S., Turkish and Iraqi intelligence agents captured senior ISIL leaders.
“They gave us all the locations where they were meeting with Baghdadi inside Syria and we decided to coordinate with the CIA to deploy more sources inside these areas,” said one of the Iraqi officials, who has close ties to multiple security agencies.
“In mid-2019 we managed to locate Idlib as the place where Baghdadi was moving from village to village with his family and three close aides,” the official said.
Informants in Syria then spotted an Iraqi man wearing a checkered headdress in an Idlib marketplace and recognized him from a photograph, the official said. It was Ethawi, and they followed him to the home where Baghdadi was staying.
“We passed the details to the CIA and they used a satellite and drones to watch the location for the past five months,” the official said.
Then, two days ago, Baghdadi left the location with his family for the first time, travelling by minibus to a nearby village.
“There it was his last moment to live,” the official said.
Baghdadi had also been on the run from local enemies in Syria.
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the group formerly known as the Nusra Front and which dominates Idlib, had been mounting its own search for Baghdadi after receiving information he was in the area, according to a commander in an Idlib jihadist group.
The Nusra Front and ISIL were rivals who fought bloody battles against each other in the Syrian war.
The Nusra Front, founded by Abu Mohamad al-Golani, was al-Qaida’s official affiliate in Syria until it broke away from the global jihadist network in 2016.
According to the Idlib commander, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham recently captured another aide to Baghdadi known as Abu Suleiman al-Khalidi, one of three men seen sitting alongside Baghdadi in his last video message.
The capture of Khalidi was “the key” in the search for Baghdadi, the commander said.
According to Trump, the United States began to receive intelligence on the whereabouts of Baghdadi around a month ago, including some “helpful” information from the Kurds.
He said U.S. intelligence officials were able to “scope out” the terrorist’s exact location two weeks ago, while Trump himself became aware of the planned raid three days ago. As part of the plan, the United States had to secure permission from Russia, Iraq and Turkey to fly over their airspace. Trump said the White House did not disclose the nature of the operation to Russia, but told Russian officials they would “like” it.
On Saturday, Trump arrived back at the White House at around 4:30 p.m. local time (10:30 p.m. in Syria) after a round of golf in Virginia. At around 5 p.m., he gathered in the White House Situation Room with Vice President Mike Pence, Defence Secretary Mark Esper, National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien, and other intelligence officials. They watched the raid unfold live “as if you were watching a movie,” said Trump.
Moments after they gathered, U.S. military personnel and military dogs lifted-off in eight helicopters, according to Trump. The personnel came from the Delta Force, one of the U.S. special units mainly focused on counterterrorism and often deployed to capture high-value targets.
Upon approaching Baghdadi’s compound, the helicopters came under gunfire but U.S. forces were able to quickly suppress the assault. Believing the main compound door to be booby trapped, they entered in just seconds by blasting through the wall, said Trump.
Baghdadi fled into a tunnel, dragging three of his young children with him.
Chased by the dogs and confronted by a dead end, Baghdadi — “whimpering and crying and screaming,” according to Trump — ignited his suicide vest, killing himself and his children and causing the tunnel to collapse.
With Baghdadi’s body “mutilated by the blasts,” U.S. forces used a DNA test on-site to confirm his identity in around 15 minutes.
“The test results gave certain, immediate and totally positive identification. It was him,” said Trump. Speaking on NBC News’ Meet The Press with Chuck Todd on Sunday, O’Brien said: “We were in the Situation Room. And the commander of the mission called and said, ‘100% confidence, jackpot.”
The soldiers proceeded to search the compound, taking “highly sensitive material” including information on ISIL’s origins and its future plans.
Trump said Monday he may declassify and release part of the video taken on Saturday of the raid, but this was later played down by his own officials.
“We’re thinking about it. We may. We may take certain parts of it and release it,” Trump said.
U.S. authorities said later Monday, however, that they have no plans to release photos or videos at this time.
“The disposal of his remains has been done and is complete and was handled appropriately,” chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army General Mike Milley, told reporters at a Pentagon briefing.