on Friday night, Donald Trump took place at Camp David the tenth anniversary of the wedding of his daughter Ivanka and Jared Kushner. It was a “dinner beautiful”, tuiteaba the president the next morning, with “a small group of family and friends.” Saturday, went to one of their golf courses, in Virginia, to play a few holes of golf with senators Lindsey Graham and David Perdue, and commissioner of major league baseball Rob Manfred, who was in the area to attend the world series of this sport, to which the Nationals of Washington were coming for the first time. The capital vibrated with the sporting event. Nothing made you think of that, 10,000 miles away, ultimaban the details for the operation against Abubaker al Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State (ISIS, for its acronym in English), the terrorist most wanted by the united States.
But the president knew since Thursday that there was a “high probability” that Al-Baghdadi was found in a house near Barisha, a town west of Aleppo, in Idlib province, in northwestern Syria. The americans were watching you during the day, after following a track provided by a militant repented of ISIS, who had become an informant for the kurdish forces, according to the testimony of a u.s. official picked by The Washington Post. The informant had gained the confidence of the americans from that he was contacted this summer, according to the same sources, and the information he provided regarding the whereabouts of Al-Baghdadi, contrasted with other sources of intelligence, was considered solid.
on Friday, according to the Associated Press, Trump already had the different military options above his desk in the Oval Office. On Saturday morning, Washington time, the Administration knew, according to the secret services, that the time had come to act.
At 16.18 Saturday, the commander-in-chief came to the White House. Three-quarters of an hour later, dressed in a suit and tie in blue and accompanied, among others, the vice-chairman Mike Pence, the National Security adviser, Robert O’brien and the secretary of Defense Mark Esper, entered the situation room to monitor what the own Trump described it as “a bold and hazardous night attack”. An operation named with the name of Kayla Mueller, aid american of 26 years abducted, tortured and murdered in 2015 by the ISIS.
Shortly after, past midnight, in the middle East, a team of Delta Force, special operations unit of the U.s. Army, took off from the base Al-Asad in western Iraq. Comprised of at least eight aircraft, including helicopters, twin-engine CH-47 transport of heavy loads. Less than a hundred troops were on the ground, according to Esper, and there were others involved in support tasks.
flew over airspace controlled by Iraq, Turkey, and Russia (which has deployed troops in Syria), countries that had been informed, without going into details, that he was going to carry out an operation. It was a flight of 70 minutes in which the soldiers, he said the president, responded to the fire of “people at random who don’t like helicopters”. Inhabitants of villages of Idlib was described to the Associated Press how they saw approaching helicopters on the horizon, flying low.
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Trump announces the death of Al-Baghdadi, leader of the Islamic State, in a military operation in Syria, Al-Baghdadi, the face of the regime of terror jihadist
When you arrive, according to Esper, the soldiers tried to call to Al-Baghdadi with the hope of surrender. But the terrorist remained inside. In its place, that left two adults and 11 children, according to reported a u.s. official to The Washington Post. Then he heard an explosion.
Trump explained that the soldiers, fearing that the entrance to the building I had attached to a deadly trap, opened a “lovely hole” in one of the walls, and entered, accompanied by trained dogs, in the complex where they knew that was hidden By Baghdadi. The leader of the terrorist, wearing an explosive vest, accompanied by at least three children, escaped by a network of bunkers and tunnels that crossed the underground of the complex. Chased by the soldiers and the dogs, ran towards a tunnel without exit, sobbing, screaming and crying all the way”, in the words of Trump, and “detonated his vest, killing himself and three children.” “He died like a dog. He died like a coward,” the president added.
In the situation room, Trump and the rest of the members viewed the operation as “absolutely perfect,” thanks to a live video signal. She was like “to be watching a movie,” said Trump.
The blast left the body of Al-Baghdadi mutilated and partially buried under the rubble. The soldiers had to dig and remove obstacles to access to his remains. Despite this, the elite troops claimed to have identified Al Baghdadi. “There was not a lot, but there were parts material recovered,” explained Trump.
At 19.15, Washington time, the soldiers confirmed the death of the terrorist, as explained by O’brien. “100% trusted, jackpot. What we’ve got. Change”, said the commander of the mission on the phone, according to the minister. At 19.23, unable to contain the emotion, the president tuiteaba a clue about the successful military operation: “Something very big just happened!”.
The soldiers were prepared to perform forensic. They carried DNA samples of their goal. Carried out genetic testing in situ and on Sunday morning the results were already definitive, according to an official quoted by The Washington Post.
there were No u.s. casualties. Only a dog, described by the president as “beautiful” and “talented”, was wounded. The soldiers were not harmed, according to Trump, although Esper noted that two soldiers suffered minor wounds, but “have already returned to service”. Five enemy combatants were killed in the interior of the enclosure and the other on the outside, according to a press release from the White House.
The remnants of Al Baghdadi, as has been explained on Monday the general Mark Milley, head of the Joint chiefs, “were treated appropriately”. The agency France Presse, citing anonymous sources in the Pentagon, assured that were released to the sea, as happened with the corpse of Osama bin Laden, leader of Al-Qaeda, after being executed by us special forces in 2011. The bodies of at least two of the wives of Al-Baghdadi were in the place. Were armed with suicide vests that had not been detonated, said the president, what made it risky to handle their bodies.
The american soldiers remained in the complex for about two hours, reported by Trump, and seized sensitive material on the ISIS, including information on their future plans. When the troops retreated, fighter planes, threw six missiles at the house. The last refuge of the terrorist most wanted was reduced to rubble.
Esper: “Our troops will still be there to deny access to ISIS resources”
“despite the death of Al Baghdadi, the security situation in Syria remains complex,” he acknowledged Monday in a press conference Mark Esper, secretary of Defense. “Multiple actors, state and non-state, continue to battle for control of the resources in the country”, he added. The head of the Pentagon has said that the U.s. mission in Syria “is not the act of police in every dispute”, but remains “the same” when they began operations in 2014: “Allow a defeat long-lasting ISIS”. The “recent repositioning of forces” in the region, he explained, “is aimed to achieve this mission and to offer options to the president.” Therefore, it has confirmed Esper, will keep control of the oil fields of the north-east of Syria. In recent days, Pentagon officials have convinced the president, who announced the withdrawal of u.s. troops from the country, to leave it there at least several hundreds of soldiers. “We never allow a ISIS rebuilt to take on these deposits”, tweeted the president on Thursday. “These sites provided the ISIS valve financial resources to fund its terror“, has ensured this Monday Esper. “Our troops will still be there to deny you access to the ISIS to these vital resources”.
