Trump Announces Killing of Baghdadi, Expresses Thanks to Russia, Syria, and Others

Oct. 27, 2019 (EIRNS)—President Donald Trump this morning announced that a raid on ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi Saturday night killed him and several of his team without any American injuries or deaths (other than their “great dog” which was injured but lived). The raid took place after midnight local time in the town of Barisha in Idlib province, the last region of the country still under the control of jihadis.

Most importantly, in his announcement, he specifically thanks both Russia and Syria, and indicated indirectly that he is willing to “make a deal” with Syria over the oil fields. “This raid was impeccable, and could only have taken place with the acknowledgment and help of certain other nations and people,” he said. “I want to thank the nations of Russia, Turkey, Syria and Iraq, and I also want to thank the Syrian Kurds for certain support they were able to give us.” He returned several times during the Q&A with the press to Russia—that Russia was helpful, that the Russians and the other regional nations (he even included Iran in this) hate ISIS as much as America does. He said Russia was informed that the eight-helicopter strike force would be flying over their territory, and Russia had cooperated.

Besides thanking Syria for cooperating in the raid, he twice indicated a willingness to make a deal over the oil fields, although he did not name Syria. He said the U.S. was securing the oil fields to prevent ISIS from again threatening them, but also noted that “somebody else may claim it, but either we’ll negotiate a deal with whoever is claiming it, if we think it’s fair, or we will militarily stop them.” He later returned to that, saying he wanted to bring in Western oil companies to rebuild the facilities, but added: “that doesn’t mean we don’t make a deal at some point.”

The raid was done entirely by U.S. forces and U.S. intelligence, he said. Taking note of the fact that there are elements in the intelligence community that participated in the attempted coup against him, he added: “When we use our intelligence correctly, what we can do is incredible. When we waste our time with intelligence, that hurts our country, because we had poor leadership at the top. That’s not good.”

Al-Baghdadi tried to escape in a tunnel, but it was a dead end, and when the soldiers were closing in on him, he blew himself up with a suicide vest. Trump emphasized that he was “whimpering and crying and screaming,” and that he had dragged three of his children along “to certain death.” Eleven other children in the house were safely brought out, and there are several other terrorists who gave up and are now captives. DNA tests on the spot confirmed it was Baghdadi, whom Trump said he had been trying to kill since he came into office.

Trump is personally calling the families of the several American civilians beheaded or otherwise killed by ISIS.