“Something very big has just happened!” – Donald Trump on ISIS leader’s killing – Iraq security sources informed
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Donald Trump has confirmed that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi was killed in a US military operation.
The president said: “Last night, we brought the world’s number one terrorist leader to justice.”
Iraq was informed by sources in Syria that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has been killed, two Iraqi security sources told Reuters on Sunday.
“Our sources from inside Syria have confirmed to the Iraqi intelligence team tasked with pursuing Baghdadi that he has been killed alongside his personal bodyguard in Idlib after his hiding place was discovered when he tried to get his family out of Idlib towards the Turkish border,” said one of the sources.
Day-time footage showed a crater in the ground and what appeared to be the aftermath of a raid, with torn blood-stained clothes on the ground. It also showed night-time footage of an explosion.
The broadcaster quoted an expert on terrorism saying that Iraqi intelligence agencies had helped pinpoint Baghdadi’s location.
Baghdadi – who has led Isis since 2010, when it was still an underground al-Qaida offshoot in Iraq – has been the subject of an international manhunt for years and has a $25m bounty on his head. He was long thought to be hiding somewhere along the Iraq-Syria border.
On 16 September, Isis’s media network issued a 30-minute audio message purporting to come from Baghdadi, in which he said operations were taking place daily and called on supporters to free women jailed in camps in Iraq and Syria over their alleged links to his group.
In April he appeared in a video for the first time in five years, weeks after the remnants of the terrorist group were ousted from their last organised stronghold in the eastern Syrian desert. Baghdadi blamed the demise of Isis on the “savagery” of Christians.
Donald Trump is due to make what has been described as a “major statement” in Washington at 9am on Sunday morning (1300 GMT).
