President Trump Confirms Al-Baghdadi Died In US Raid
27 October 2019, 13:22 | Updated: 27 October 2019, 13:50
In a much anticipated announcement, President Trump announced that IS leader Al-Baghdadi has been killed.
In an announcement at the White House, which took place 20 minutes later than scheduled, he confirmed that Baghdadi had been killed.
Trump said the IS leader was "whimpering and crying and screaming" when running into a 'dead-end' tunnel in north-west Syria.
The terrorist brought his three children with him - and detonated a suicide bomb - killing them all.
Test results gave "totally positive" identification that it was him.
Intelligence collected by the CIA - and other countries - led to the US special operations raid in north-west Syria.
He thanked Russia, Turkey, Syria, Iraq and the Kurds for their support with the al-Baghdadi operation.
Trump said: "Last night, we brought the world's number one terrorist leader to justice."
He said he "died like a dog".
The operation took almost two hours and resulted in the deaths of some of al-Baghdadi's companions.
He referred to other ISIS terrorists as "losers" and "whimpering puppies".
No US personnel were killed.
President Trump said: "As Commander-in-Chief of the United States, we obliterated his caliphate 100 per cent in March of this year. Today's events are a reminder that will continue to pursue the remaining ISIS terrorists to their brutal end. That also goes to other terrorist organisations."
Something very big has just happened!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 27, 2019
Trump prompted speculation that the caliph had been killed by posting a tweet last night.
He said that he would be making a 'major announcement' outside the White House at 9:00AM ET.
Former Head of Counter-Terrorism at the Ministry of Defence and former Senior British Military Advisor to the US Central Command Major General Chip Chapman spoke to LBC about the significance of his death.
