Al-Baghdadi death ends long manhunt
WASHINGTON — The U.S. special forces operation in Syria that led to the reported death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State militant group, brought to a close a manhunt that lasted nearly a decade and dealt a significant blow to a jihadi group known for its extremism and brutality.
President Donald Trump announced the terror leader’s death in a televised statement Sunday from the White House, relishing the opportunity to taunt the deceased militant and declare victory over Islamic State, also known as ISIS.
“He was a sick and depraved man, and now he’s gone,” Trump said, vowing that the U.S. would “continue to pursue the remaining ISIS terrorists.”
“Last night was a great night for the United States and for the world,” Trump said. “He died like a coward, the world is now a much safer place.”
Al-Baghdadi had a spectacular rise and fall in the violent world of Islamic extremism, forging elements of the Sunni insurgency against the U.S. in Iraq into Islamic State, which in 2014 conquered a swath of Iraq and Syria the size of Britain that he declared to be an Islamic caliphate. For more than two years, he ruled over some 12 million people, employing brutal, highly publicized killings, rapes of captive women and enslavement of non-Sunni minorities to enforce his theocratic brand of Islam.
Even before those conquests, alBaghdadi had been among the world’s most wanted men, hunted by the CIA and the intelligence services of Iraq and several of its neighbors. He eluded pursuit in part by stringent security procedures, seldom appearing in public and communicating even with his own followers only through intermediaries.
His death came when he detonated a suicide vest, killing himself and three children with him, according to Trump and U.S. military officials. It capped a U.S. commando raid Saturday in Syria’s Idlib province, in the northwestern part of the country.
No U.S. personnel were killed in the raid, Trump said. In addition to the three children, two women, believed to be wives of al-Baghdadi, also died in the raid, he said. An additional 11 children who survived the raid were turned over to local forces.
After reading his prepared remarks from a teleprompter, Trump stayed at the White House podium, taking questions during what ended up being a nearly 50-minute exchange with reporters. Trump revealed an extraordinary level of operational information about the raid — details normally withheld — with much of it aimed at driving home the argument that al-Baghdadi was not a powerful militant leader, but a weak and evil man.
“He died after running into a deadend tunnel whimpering and crying and screaming all the way,” Trump said, adding that he watched much of the operation from the White House Situation Room as it took place.
It was “like a movie,” he said, describing al-Baghdadi being chased in the tunnel by one of the Army’s trained dogs and noting that the assault team brought a robot with them for pursuit, but didn’t use it because the operation moved too quickly.
“The thug who tried so hard to intimidate others spent his last moments in utter fear, in total panic and dread,” he said.
Asked if he actually heard alBaghdadi whimpering on the video feed, Trump said, “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Defense Secretary Mark Esper, interviewed on several Sunday television programs, was far more tightlipped than the president about the intelligence that led to the raid and the way it played out, but confirmed that the Islamic State leader had committed suicide by detonating an explosive vest after being pursued into a tunnel.
“The aim was to capture,” Esper said on CNN. “We tried to call him out and asked him to surrender himself. He refused.”
He notably did not vouch for Trump’s claim about the terrorist leader whimpering.
“I don’t have those details,” he said on ABC’s “This Week.”
Trump, who has been eager to withdraw U.S. forces from the Middle East, mixed his message with characteristic self-aggrandizement as he took credit for a mission that, he noted, was aided by regional allies.
“Bin Laden was big, but this was bigger,” he declared at one point, referring to the 2011 raid in which U.S. forces killed Osama bin Laden during former President Barack Obama’s tenure. Bin Laden attacked the World Trade Center, but al-Baghdadi attempted to build a country, Trump said.
At another point he claimed, falsely, that in a book published in 2000 he had advocated killing bin Laden long before anyone else had realized the importance of the alQaida leader. By that point, bin Laden had already been indicted by a federal grand jury on terrorism charges, was listed as one of America’s most wanted fugitives and had been the target of at least one unsuccessful U.S. military raid.
Trump’s rhetoric drew some immediate criticism, including from figures in his own party. Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, the senior GOP member of the House Armed Services Committee, said during an interview on CNN on Sunday that some of the remarks made him “uncomfortable.”
According to Esper, Trump gave the go-ahead for the raid on Thursday. U.S. forces had al-Baghdadi under surveillance for the “last couple of weeks,” Trump said, as the militant leader repeatedly changed his plans.
The leader of the Syrian Democratic Forces, the leading Kurdish militia group, which was aligned with the U.S. in the fight against Islamic State, said in a statement on Twitter that planning for the operation had been under way at least since early summer.