Oct. 27 (UPI) — Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State, reportedly was killed in a raid conducted by U.S. military Saturday in northwest Syria.
Sources confirmed the developments to several media outlets, including CNN.
At 9:23 p.m. EDT Saturday, Donald Trump posted on Twitter “something very big has just happened!”
The president is scheduled to make a major announcement at 9 a.m. Sunday from the White House, deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley later announced. An administration official told CNN the news was related to foreign policy.
The Defense Department has a “high confidence” Baghdadi died, but further verification is pending DNA testing
Newsweek reported Trump one week ago approved a special operations mission in the last bastion of the country’s Islamist-dominated opposition.
A defense official told CNN that Baghdadi detonated a suicide vest during the raid.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces described a “successful” joint operation with the United States, CNN reported. The CIA assisted in locating the ISIS leader, a defense official told CNN.
And Iraqi Joint Operations “played an important role in providing important information to the American side in the operations of killing la-Baghdadi,” said Maj. Gen. Tahseen al-Khafaji, a spokesperson for the Iraqi Joint Operations.
In 2010, Baghdadi became the leader of Islamic State of Iraq, known as ISI.
SI declared it absorbed an al Qaeda-backed militant group in Syria in 2013.
Osama bin Laden, the founder and first leader of the Islamist terrorist group Al-Qaeda was killed in Pakistan on May 2, 2011, by U.S. Navy SEALs.
Baghdadi was last seen in July 2014, when he spoke at the Great Mosque in Mosul, Syria.
In February 2018, several U.S. officials said Baghdadi had been wounded in an airstrike in May 2017.
In April, the Islamic State media wing al-Furqan displayed a man purporting to be Baghdadi.
The U.S. State Department had offered a $25 million reward for information on his whereabouts.
