US may release Baghdadi raid video Praise and caution greet news of death
Palmyra
Raqqa
After Trump announced IS chief’s death, his campaign says president is ‘keeping America safe’
WASHINGTON:US President Donald Trump said on Monday he may order the release of parts of the video of the raid that resulted in the killing of Islamic State chief Abu Bakr al-baghdadi, which his 2020 re-election campaign is touting as a personal achievement, telling supporters the president is “keeping America safe”.
Trump spoke about the killing at a Chicago event, saying Baghdadi is “dead as a doornail”, and attacked his predecessor Barack Obama, on whose watch the IS grew into a so-called caliphate with areas captured from Iraq and Syria: “He should have been killed years ago, another president should have gotten him.”
It wasn’t clear how much of the video would be released of the two-hour raid by the elite Delta Force operatives.
Trump, who watched the operation live in the situation room of the White House, said it was like “watching a movie”.
He had refused to say how the video was shot, but news reports have suggested it was recorded from an overhead drone, and that it may not bear out the details discussed by Trump, who repeated some of it at Chicago, including that Baghdadi “didn’t die bravely”.
Asked if he would consider releasing the video of the raid, he said, “We’re thinking about it. We may … And we may take certain parts of it and release it, yes.”
As more details will emerge of the raid, Trump, currently mired in an impeachment inquiry, would expect a bump in approval ratings, from the current low of 41% in the Realclearpolitics average of polls, as did President Barack Obama after the killing of Osama bin Laden in May 2011.
But the question he might also be asking himself is whether it will be just as short-lived.
Obama’s seven-point bump was gone in two months, and he was back at pre-bin Laden ratings.
Will Trump’s last, and until November of 2020?
Just hours after the announcement, Trump was loudly booed when he was introduced during a baseball championship game at a stadium in Democratic-leaning Washington DC, with a section of the crowd also breaking into a chant of “Lock him up”.
Nothing will stop him and his allies, from trying though. Trump started right away after the announcement with a 40-minute long news briefing, in which he portrayed the killing as the result of his unwavering focus on the hunt for al-baghdadi from the day he took office.
WASHINGTON: Countries that bore the brunt of the terror unleased by Islamic State welcomed the announcement by US President Donald Trump of the successful operation that killed its chief Abu Bakr al-baghdadi.
Russia said on Monday the killing, if confirmed, would represent a “serious contribution” by Trump to fighting terrorism.
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe of Sri Lanka, where 269 people were killed in April in suicide attacks claimed by IS, commended Trump for the operation, which he said “makes the world a safe place”. Baghdadi had appeared in a video praising the attacks targeting Sri Lankan churches on Easter Sunday.
French interior minister Christophe Castaner, in a letter to police prefects, called for increased vigilance to prevent possible revenge attacks.
“The possible intensification of jihadist propaganda following this death, which could possibly call for acts of vengeance, requires the most extreme vigilance, notable during public events in your departments in coming days,” Castaner said.
Saudi Arabia said on Monday that Baghdadi had distorted the image of Islam. “The kingdom appreciates the US administration’s efforts to pursue members of this terrorist organisation that distorted the real image of Islam... and committed atrocities and crimes,” said a Saudi foreign ministry source, according to the official Saudi Press Agency.
The Russian military had earlier raised doubts about Trump’s announcement that Baghdadi was killed in northwestern Syria.
But President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday: “Our officers really saw US planes in the area, they saw drones in the area which could have been working there” as Trump had claimed.
Germany said its thoughts are with the many victims of Islamic State atrocities.
Government spokesman Steffen Seibert cited the “murdered and enslaved Yazidis,” local people in areas where IS had taken control as well as foreign hostages, and those who were killed in IS attacks in Europe and elsewhere.
He told reporters on Monday that al-baghdadi “can’t issue such murderous orders anymore now,” but added that “this doesn’t mean that the fight against IS is over”.