U.S. President Donald Trump says Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is dead after a U.S. military operation in Syria targeted the Islamic State group leader.
Trump says in a statement to the nation from the White House’s Diplomatic Room that “al-Baghdadi is dead” — fulfilling the top national security priority of his administration.
He says no U.S. personnel were lost in the mission.
In this undated TV grab taken from a video released by Al-Furqan media, the chief of the Islamic State group Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi purportedly appears for the first time in five years in a propaganda video in an undisclosed location. [File photo: AFP / Al-Furqan media]
Al-Baghdadi presided over IS’s global jihad and became arguably the world’s most wanted man.
The announcement comes as Trump has been on the receiving end of bipartisan criticism in Washington following the recent pullback of U.S. troops from northeastern Syria. Critics fear that move will allow the militant group to regain strength after it had lost vast stretches of territory it had once controlled.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks in the Diplomatic Room of the White House in Washington, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2019. [Cover Image: AP/Andrew Harnik]
