Trump Says Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi Blew Himself Up

"Last night the United States brought the world’s Number One terrorist leader to justice," Trump said in a televised announcement form the White House. “He was a sick and depraved man, and now he’s gone.” 

According to a report by Washington Post, the US president described what he called a "dangerous and daring" nighttime operation by US Special Operations forces in northwest Syria, involving a series of firefights and culminating in what he said was a retreat by Baghdadi into a tunnel.

There Baghdadi, who Trump said was “whimpering and crying and screaming,” detonated an explosive vest, killing himself and three young children he brought with him.

The high-risk operation brings a dramatic end to a years-long hunt for the man who spearheaded the ISIL's transformation from an underground insurgent band to a powerful quasi-state that straddled two countries and spawned copycat movements across continents.

Trump said Baghdadi, a former university professor who was once held in a US-run prison in Iraq, had been tracked over the last two weeks to a compound in Syria’s Idlib province which was laid with tunnels. He said the operation involved eight helicopters. He said no US personnel were killed in the operation but that militants were killed.

The raid comes as the United States scrambles to adjust its posture in Syria in the wake of Trump’s decision to curtail the US military mission. Trump said earlier this month he would pull out nearly all of the approximately 1,000 troops in Syria amid a Turkish offensive against Syrian Kurdish troops who have been the Pentagon’s main battlefield partner there, but evolving plans now call for a larger residual force that could mean a substantial ongoing campaign. 

Trump during his remarks thanked a long list of nations, including Russia and Turkey, and groups including Syrian Kurdish forces who have been the main US partner in Syria.

A senior official from Iraq’s intelligence service, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, said the arrests and interrogation of a number of people close to Baghdadi yielded up his location, which they then gave to the Americans. He confirmed the location raided Saturday was the one his service had discovered.

Meanwhile, the Kurdish-led Syrian Defense Forces indicated that they too had provided intelligence for the operation.

“For five months there has been joint intel cooperation on the ground and accurate monitoring, until we achieved a joint operation to kill Abu Bakir al-Bagdadi,” its commander, Gen. Mazloum Abdi tweeted.

Baghdadi makes first video appearance in 5 years