Evidently Islamic State head Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has been killed in a U.S lead raid in Idlib province, Syria:
The United States military has conducted a special operations raid targeting one of its most high-value targets, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State militant group (ISIS), Newsweek has learned. President Donald Trump approved the mission nearly a week before it took place.
Amid reports Saturday of U.S. military helicopters over Syria’s northwestern Idlib province, a senior Pentagon official familiar with the operation and Army official briefed on the matter told Newsweek that Baghdadi was the target of the top-secret operation in the last bastion of the country’s Islamist-dominated opposition, a faction that has clashed with ISIS in recent years. 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.
Members of a team from the Joint Special Operations Command carried out Saturday’s high-level operation after receiving actionable intelligence, according to sources familiar with the operation. The location raided by special operations troops had been under surveillance for some time.
On Saturday night, after the operation had concluded, President Trump tweeted: “Something very big has just happened!” The White House announced later that the president will make a “major statement” Sunday morning at 9:00 a.m.
May Baghdadi rot in hell. Syria, Iraq, Kurds, Shiites, the Middle East, the United States, and the entire world are better for his death.
Idlib is in northeast Syria, in territory that’s never been controlled by the U.S. allied, Kurdish-lead Syrian Democratic Forces, in territory currently held by Turkish-allied forces.
I’m guessing permission to operate there may have been part of Trump’s accord with Turkey to give them a buffer zone in northeast Syria.
Do you think we’ll see the MSM lavish praise on President Trump for al-Baghdadi’s death the way the praised Obama for weeks after Osama bin Laden’s death? I rather doubt it. Instead, I suspect their main story Monday will be more leaks from Adam Schiff’s star chamber impeachment farce.
So it goes…