With the recent announcement of the pull of US troops, Trump has announced that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the founder and leader of ISIS was killed in a US raid on Sunday.
What We Know:
The Situation Room then, and now.
I like now. #Baghdadi pic.twitter.com/s6ll4CTuPx— Alana Mastrangelo (@ARmastrangelo) October 27, 2019
- According to CBS, Trump advised that he watched the raid from the White House Situation Room along with other top military officials.
- U.S. forces in eight helicopters flew for more than an hour from an undisclosed location to reach the area Abu was at. After the soldiers cleared the area, Abu ran to a dead-end tunnel with his three children. Once Abu realized it was a dead-end, he detonated a suicide bomb. Trump added that Abu was “whimpering and crying and screaming all the way”. No US soldiers were killed during this mission.
- Trump thanked Russia, Turkey, Syria, the Kurds, and Iraq for their assistance in the operation. He also thanked the troops involved in the operation during the speech. He hasn’t declassified any information on the soldiers involved, he only revealed a picture of a dog who helped in the raid.
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! pic.twitter.com/PDMx9nZWvw
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 28, 2019
- Trump didn’t reveal this information to oppositions such as Nancy Pelosi out of fear she would make the news public. She condemned these actions by saying “The House must be briefed on this raid, which the Russians but not top Congressional Leadership were notified of in advance, and on the Administration’s overall strategy in the region”.
- Trump credited himself with the raid talking about how he approved the mission. This is just one of his many contradictions. In the past, he has said that people shouldn’t have given Obama praise for the kill of Osama Bin Laden. And yet, he is taking credit for this death.
Yesterday I explained to @wolfblitzercnn on @CNNSitRoom why @BarackObama doesn’t deserve credit for killing Bin Laden http://t.co/PQwVDxVb
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 9, 2011
Trump stated how the raid had nothing to do with the pull. “No, the pullout had nothing to do with this. In fact we found this out at a similar time, it’s a very good question, because we found this out at a similar time.”