Inside the mission that killed Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
By Michael C. Bender, Raja Abdulrahim and Nancy A. Youssef Updated Oct. 27, 2019 8:10 pm ET WASHINGTON—The chopping of blades from eight U.S. military helicopters roused startled residents in northwestern Syria around midnight Saturday, an unusual sound for an area close to the relative quiet of the Turkish border.
The hunt for Baghdadi has been an American national security priority ever since the U.S. and its mainly Kurdish allies captured the militants’ last desert holdout in eastern Syria in March. But an official in the Iraqi National Intelligence Service said the agency had provided the U.S. with the coordinates of Baghdadi’s location based information gathered from captured associates of Baghdadi’s. Turkish and Kurdish military leaders also said they had intelligence concerning Baghdadi.
Photo: Google The area where the raid took place is controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an organization with former links to al Qaeda and current ties with other extremist groups. Here, the group's members block demonstrators from approaching the Bab al-Hawa crossing on the Turkey-Syria border to protest the Syrian regime and its ally Russia on Sept. 20.Video: Macro Media Center via Storyful Destroyed areas in Barisha in Syria.
On Saturday at 5 p.m. in Washington, Mr. Trump entered the White House Situation Room with Vice President Pence and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, among others. He said the decision to approve the mission—whether to put “a large number of brilliant fighters” at risk — was difficult.
Amid the firefight, a U.S. military dog chased Baghdadi who attempted to escape through a series of tunnels along with three of his children, Mr. Trump said. Baghdadi detonated his suicide vest at the end of one closed-end tunnel while “whimpering, crying and screaming all the way,” the president said. The president declined to say how he knew Baghdadi was whimpering.
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