Abu Bakr al-baghdadi, the leader of the militant group Isis, was killed on Saturday in a US special forces raid in north-western Syria, President Donald Trump announced from the White House on Sunday.
“The United States brought the world’s number one terrorist leader to justice,” Mr Trump said at a televised press conference. “Abu Bakr al-baghdadi is dead.”
The killing of the militant leader, who for years unleashed terror across Syria, Iraq and further afield, came just weeks after Mr Trump faced bipartisan criticism for withdrawing US forces from north-east Syria and allowing Turkey to invade.
Opponents of the pullout say it betrayed the Syrian Kurds who had been US allies in the fight against Isis and that it could allow the jihadi group to surge back after its defeat and expulsion from most of the territory it held in Syria and Iraq.
Mr Trump said Baghdadi was the target of a commando operation in Idlib province, which borders Turkey in north-west Syria. Though analysts had viewed the area as too hostile for the Isis leader, Mr Trump said Baghdadi had been attempting to rebuild the terror group from there. Idlib is dominated by Hayat Tahrir al-sham, an al-qaeda linked group that has previously clashed with Isis.
The US president said the operations had been weeks in the planning and said the Isis leader was killed after trying to flee US forces in a tunnel “whimpering and crying and screaming all the way”.
Baghdadi, accompanied by three of his children, detonated a suicide vest, Mr Trump said, adding that no US personnel, other than a dog, were injured. “His body was mutilated by the blast,” said the US president. “The tunnel had caved in on it, in addition.”
However, Russia’s defence ministry cast doubt on the operation’s success and said its forces had not provided the US any assistance.
“The escalating number of direct participants and countries that supposedly took part in this ‘operation’, each one with completely contradictory details, justifiably raises questions and doubts about whether it happened, never mind succeeded,” said Igor Konashenkov, Russia’s army spokesman, according to Interfax.
Russia did not observe any US air strikes near Idlib on Saturday and denied that it had helped the operation, Mr Konashenkov added.
