Head of Islamic State killed in U.S. Military operation

• The Associated Press
  BioRecent Stories

  

  The Associated Press (AP) is a U.S.-based not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City.

(Washington) — President Donald Trump says Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is dead after a U.S. military operation in Syria targeted the Islamic State group leader.

Trump said in a statement to the nation from the White House’s Diplomatic Room that “al-Baghdadi is dead” — fulfilling the top national security priority of his administration.

He says no U.S. personnel were lost in the mission.

Al-Baghdadi presided over IS’s global jihad and became arguably the world’s most wanted man.

The announcement comes as Trump has been on the receiving end of bipartisan criticism in Washington following the recent pullback of U.S. troops from northeastern Syria. Critics fear that move will allow the militant group to regain strength after it had lost vast stretches of territory it had once controlled.

Trump said the U.S. military raid that took out the Islamic State leader is a bigger deal than the 2011 killing of Osama bin Laden during the Obama administration.

The president acknowledges that the death of bin Laden was significant, but he believes the news about al-Baghdadi is even bigger news.

Trump says that bin Laden didn’t become a global name in terrorism until the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The president says that’s in contrast to al-Baghdadi, who Trump says is responsible for building a caliphate.