US President Trump announces death of Isis leader Baghdadi
- The president says Baghdadi fled into a tunnel with three of his children and detonated a suicide vest after being targeted in a US military raid in Syria
- Trump also claims the raid that took out the Isis head was a bigger deal than the 2011 killing of Osama bin Laden
The shadowy leader of Islamic State (Isis), who presided over its global jihad and became arguably the world’s most wanted man, is dead after being targeted by a US military raid in Syria, President Donald Trump said.
“Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is dead,” Trump announced at the White House on Sunday night, saying the US had “brought the world’s No 1 terrorist leader to justice.”
As US forces bore down on him, Trump said Baghdadi fled into a tunnel with three of his children and detonated a suicide vest. “He was a sick and depraved man, and now he’s gone,” he said. “He died like a dog, he died like a coward.”
Trump said the raid that took out Baghdadi was a bigger deal than the 2011 killing of Osama bin Laden during the Obama administration.
He said Baghdadi was responsible for building a caliphate, while bin Laden did not become a global name in terrorism until the attacks of September 11, 2001.
No US forces were killed or injured in the raid, Trump said. He added that Baghdadi’s identity was positively confirmed by a DNA test conducted onsite.
A US official had earlier said Baghdadi was targeted in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province, while Iraq said its National Intelligence Service had found Baghdadi’s location and provided it to the US.
Trump on late Saturday had teased a major announcement, tweeting that “Something very big has just happened!”. By the morning, he was thanking Russia, Turkey, Syria and Iraq, as well as Kurdish fighters in Syria for their support.