The compound was destroyed in a US helicopter raid while Baghdadi fled into a tunnel, then detonated an explosive belt, killing himself and three of his children
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley couldn't confirm President Trump's descriptive account of how ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was 'whimpering' before he died.
'I know the president had planned to talk down to unit and unit members, but I don't know what the source of that was,' Milley said at the Pentagon Monday. 'But I assume it was talking directly to unit and unit members.'
Milley said he hadn't 'talked to unit members,' and so wouldn't have heard those details, but told reporters that
visual content from the raid was going through the declassification process and in the 'coming days' journalists would be 'provided some videos, photos, etc. of it.'Trump had already teased having the video of the raid released.
'We're thinking about it. We may. The question was, am I considering releasing video footage of the raid. And we may take certain parts of it and release it, yes,' the president told reporters at Joint Base Andrews as he prepared to leave for Chicago, Monday morning.
No timeline has been provided for the release and White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley didn't have one when asked about it by reporters later that day.
President Trump watched the special forces operation to kill Baghdadi via drone footage, instead of a body-worn camera, so did not see the moment the ISIS leader died, according to military and intelligence officials.
Trump announced the success of the raid in a press conference, saying that Baghdadi died 'whimpering and crying and screaming', and 'like a dog and a coward'.
He described the video footage he watched as 'something really amazing to see' and that it was 'as though you were watching a movie'. Helicopters carried US special forces to the compound of Baghdadi where he was hiding near Idlib in northwestern Syria.
Half way around the world, Trump watched the raid in real-time via a video link as troops blasted into the hideout and sent the most-wanted militant running the last steps of his life before detonating a suicide belt.
Surveillance footage on several video screens showing various angles of the overhead maneuvers were relayed via drone to multiple screens in the Situation Room at the White House.However, military sources said the president would not have been able to see what was happening inside the compound or the moment Baghdadi fled to a dead-end tunnel with three of his children, according to the
New York Times.
There was also no live audio of the daring raid, which was the culmination of years of intelligence-gathering and hastily put together once Washington got word that Baghdadi would be at a certain hideout near the village of Barisha.
In order to know this detail about Baghdadi's final moments, Trump would have needed reports directly from the commandos who took part in the operation or received the information passed through the chain of command to the president, military sources claim.
US Special Operations forces have, in recent years, opted to move away from using helmet cams to relay real time footage because of the disorienting and sometimes violent nature of the images. There is also the fear that such footage encourages instant intervention from command centers, the
New York Times reports.
Milley's response Monday came after Defense Secretary Mark Esper was essentially asked the same question on Sunday.
He answered the same way.
'I don't have those details. The president probably had the opportunity to talk to the commanders on the ground,' Esper said.
The commandos were wearing body cameras, but these did not broadcast in real time due to the nature of the operation.This footage can be downloaded and reviewed after the operation finished, according to Pentagon officials.
A Defense Department source told the
New York Times it was possible Trump spoke to either the Delta Force operators involved in the raid or their superiors.
The operation came four days after Trump green lit the raid on Saturday, with the president cryptically tweeting, 'Something very big has just happened!'.
Several other opportunities for the strike were aborted at the last minute with helicopters flying some 500 miles over 'very very dangerous territory'.
National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien, Vice President Mike Pence, Esper, Milley and Brig. General Marcus Evans, were also present as Trump watched the raid.
Comment: As pointed out yesterday, the U.S. military has 'confirmed' that they have already
disposed of the remains:
Following the US special forces operation in northwestern Syria, in which Washington claims al-Baghdadi was eliminated, the mutilated body was immediately taken "to a secure facility to confirm his identity with forensic DNA testing," Army General Mike Milley, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a news briefing. "The disposal of his remains has been done and is complete and was handled appropriately."
Just like al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) terrorist group chief was reportedly given a proper burial at sea in accordance with Islamic tradition, with all Muslim religious rites afforded to him.
Which is nonsense, just as it was
with bin Laden. It isn't "Islamic tradition" to bury people at sea:
Mohammed al-Qubaisi, Dubai's grand mufti, said of Bin Laden's burial: "They can say they buried him at sea, but they cannot say they did it according to Islam. Sea burials are permissible for Muslims in extraordinary circumstances. This is not one of them."
Obviously, the UN
cannot confirm Baghdadi's death (especially given that the remains are now allegedly somewhere at the bottom of the Mediterranean, or some body of water):
The US President's statement on the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi sounded confident, but the United Nations is still unable to confirm the death of the Islamic State leader for lack of proof, a high-ranking UN official has said.
The UN Monitoring Team on terrorist groups is going to put questions to the US and other involved parties to clarify the fate of al-Baghdadi, Edmund Fitton-Brown, a British diplomat who coordinates the team, told RIA Novosti news agency.
"All we have so far is the public announcement from the Americans, but it does seem like a very confident announcement. They seem very sure of themselves. They claim that they have verified it... So, I think that should be taken very seriously."
However, Fitton-Brown pointed out that Washington "would be setting themselves up to a considerable embarrassment" if the report on the death of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) chief turns out to be false.
Hasn't stopped them in the past...
What HAS been released so far: the photo and identity of the
attack dog who chased down Baghdadi:
President Trump on Monday afternoon tweeted a photo of the four-legged hero, clad in what appears to be a camouflage harness and with its tongue lolling out of its mouth โ belying its US Army-trained ferocity.
"We have declassified a picture of the wonderful dog (name not declassified) that did such a GREAT JOB in capturing and killing the Leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi!" wrote the president.
The pooch โ a Belgian Malinois named Conan, according to reports in Newsweek and the Washington Examiner โ was unleashed after Baghdadi when the coward fled US troops down a dead-end tunnel late Saturday.
Before Conan could turn the murderous mastermind into a human chew toy, Baghdadi detonated his bomb vest, killing himself and three of his kids, causing a small cave-in โ and wounding his furry pursuer.
But amazingly, Conan has already been cleared to return to service, Pentagon officials said Monday.
"The dog is still in theater," said Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a press briefing. "The dog ... performed a tremendous service as they all do in a variety of situations."
Conan was "slightly wounded and fully recovering, but the dog is still in theater, returned to duty with its handler," he added.
At the time, Milley declined to name the canine โ saying the Department of Defense was "protecting the dog's identity" โ or elaborate on its intended role.
But the Navy SEALs who took down 9/11 engineer Osama bin Laden also had a tail-wagging secret weapon, utilizing another Belgian Malinois named Cairo in the 2011 mission to sniff out potential bombs and, if necessary, attack enemy combatants.
Milley's tight-lipped approach was a common sentiment in Monday's briefing, as few new details about the momentous mission trickled out.
Milley confirmed that photos and video of the raid are going through a "declassification process" for release in the coming days, but declined to reveal exactly what they showed, at what point during the mission they were taken or if any were shot from a camera mounted on the dog.
He similarly refused to elaborate on the nature of ISIS intelligence that was culled from the clandestine lair before it was leveled by American bombs.
Milley did acknowledge that two men were nabbed alive in the raid and are being held in American custody, but declined to offer any clues as to their identity or roles.
As for how they were apparently able to verify the DNA, SF spokesman Mustafa Bali that an informant who led them to Baghdadi's location provided them with
Baghdadi's underwear and a blood sample. This story keeps on getting better!
ISIS reportedly now has a
new leader: Abdullah "The Destroyer" or "The Professor" Qardash, an ex-military officer under Saddam Hussein:
According to the Times of London, Qardash had been loyal to Baghdadi, as the pair were held in the Camp Bucca detention centre in Basra, Iraq, after being jailed by US forces over their links to al-Qaeda in 2003, and Baghdadi was even handing more power to Qardash before he died. Fadhel Abo Ragheef, a former security analyst with the Iraqi government, told the Times in August that Baghdadi was "trying to prepare Qardash to lead ISIS in the future."
Researchers at Singapore's S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies also stated that Qardash would take over Daesh's leadership. "Described by some security analysts as cruel and authoritarian yet popular and well-respected among other [Daesh] members, Qardash was responsible for eliminating those who are against al-Baghdadi's style of leadership," the researchers said.
Damian Wilson of RT
reminds us:
This was an episode that called for restraint, as it is not the first time the death of Al Baghdadi has been announced, only to be later proven wrong. The Guardian had him paralyzed with a severe spinal injury after an airstrike in April 2015, Syrian state TV reported him dead in June 2017, Iranian TV said he was "definitely dead" and the Russians claimed as much again, all in the same month.
In July 2017 he was pronounced dead once more, then alive and then, to clear the matter up, a year later, he emerged from obscurity with a new propaganda video.
So, while Trump described watching the fugitive "whimpering and crying and screaming all the way" to his death, why not just hold back a tick until we're offered some more substantial information?
While we do not want to see the sort of televised barbarism that befell Muammar Ghaddafi or Saddam Hussein, some irrefutable proof, shared with the watching world, that the remains are those of Al Baghdadi, would be welcome.
Previous updates and commentary here:
Comment: As pointed out yesterday, the U.S. military has 'confirmed' that they have already disposed of the remains: Which is nonsense, just as it was with bin Laden. It isn't "Islamic tradition" to bury people at sea: Obviously, the UN cannot confirm Baghdadi's death (especially given that the remains are now allegedly somewhere at the bottom of the Mediterranean, or some body of water): Hasn't stopped them in the past...
What HAS been released so far: the photo and identity of the attack dog who chased down Baghdadi: As for how they were apparently able to verify the DNA, SF spokesman Mustafa Bali that an informant who led them to Baghdadi's location provided them with Baghdadi's underwear and a blood sample. This story keeps on getting better!
ISIS reportedly now has a new leader: Abdullah "The Destroyer" or "The Professor" Qardash, an ex-military officer under Saddam Hussein: Damian Wilson of RT reminds us: Previous updates and commentary here: