US special forces have killed the world’s most wanted terrorist, ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, according to unconfirmed US reports.
Newsweek is reporting that US President Donald Trump approved the mission nearly a week before it took place and tweeted: “Something very big has happened!” at 12.23pm AEST on Sunday.
Tweet from @realDonaldTrump
President Donald Trump is scheduled to make a major announcement Sunday at 9am in the United State (3am AEDT).
Senior Pentagon officials told Newsweek that “Baghdadi was the target of the top-secret operation in the last bastion of the country’s Islamist-dominated opposition, a faction that has clashed with ISIS in recent years.
“A U.S. Army official briefed on the results of the operation told Newsweek that Baghdadi was killed in the raid. And the Defense Department told the White House they have ‘high confidence’ that the high-value target killed was Baghdadi, but further verification is pending,” the report states.
Newsweek reporter James La Porta reported further that the terrorist leader detonated a suicide vest when US special operations troops arrived at his base in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province.
Tweet from @JimLaPorta
The killing of al-Baghdadi would be a huge PR coup for the US President as he faces criticism for withdrawing from Syria – a move that has split the Republican Party.
In September, ISIS released a new message from the extremist group leader calling for supporters to free terrorists held in refugee detention camps and prisons.
“The prisons, the prisons, soldiers of the caliphate!” he said.
“Do your utmost to rescue your brothers and sisters and break down the walls that imprison them,” he added in the message distributed by the Telegram app.
There are 66 Australian women and children held in Syria who are fighting to return to Australia.
Al-Baghdadi’s only public appearance as the leader of Islamic State was in July, 2014, when he spoke at the Great Mosque in Mosul and declared a Caliphate.
According to the US Department of State, he is a Specially Designated Global Terrorist and “responsible for the deaths of thousands of civilians in the Middle East, including the brutal murder of numerous civilian hostages from Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States”.
US authorities have also accused him of repeatedly raping an American, Kayla Mueller, who ISIL later alleged was killed in a Jordanian airstrike.
After he fled Iraq, US Intelligence believed that he was based in Raqqa, Syria.
CNN is reporting that the CIA was involved in locating the leader of ISIS, in a raid in northwest Syria on Saturday.
The terrorist leader has remained in hiding for five years and has been the subject of multiple reports he has been injured or even killed during that period.
In February. the Guardian reported that al-Baghdadi had survived a coup attempt in a village near Hajin, in the Euphrates River valley.
The last claimed sighting of him was in April, when a video was published by the ISIS media wing al-Furqan claiming to show he was alive.
Last year, US officials said Baghdadi had been wounded in an airstrike in May 2017 and had to hand over control of ISIS to others because of his injuries.
More to come
The post Trump to make ‘major statement’ as speculation mounts ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is dead appeared first on The New Daily.
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