GOING AFTER EVIL: More Info On U.S. Forces’ Operation in Syria Targeting ISIS Leader Baghdadi

The Trump administration launched a military operation in Syria targeting Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the elusive leader of the Islamic State, as reported last night on Matzav.com when the story first broke following a tweet from President Donald Trump.

Officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss activities that have not yet been made public, said Special Operations forces conducted a raid in northwest Syria’s Idlib province aimed at the militant leader. The officials said it was not clear whether Baghdadi, who managed to evade a prolonged U.S. and allied campaign to locate him, was killed in the operation.

Late Motzoei Shabbos, the White House said that President Trump would make “major announcement” at 9 a.m. Sunday. “Something very big has just happened!” the president tweeted.

The operation targeting Baghdadi was first reported by Newsweek. The Defense Department did not respond to requests for comment.

If confirmed, Baghdadi’s death would bring a dramatic end to a years-long hunt for the man who spearheaded the Islamic State’s transformation from an underground insurgent band to a powerful quasi-state that straddled two countries and spawned copycat movements across continents.

A former university professor who was once held in a U.S.-run prison in Iraq, Baghdadi has been erroneously reported killed or wounded multiple times.

One official said that, during the operation, an individual believed to be the militant leader appeared to have detonated an explosive vest and killed himself. Officials said they were now seeking to verify whether that person was in fact Baghdadi.

The group’s self-proclaimed caliphate, which at its largest stretched across much of Iraq and Syria, has been largely destroyed following years of assaults by U.S., Syrian, Iraqi, European and other forces, but officials believe that the organization remains a formidable threat determined to regain strength.

While Baghdadi, a native of the Iraqi city of Samarra believed to be in his mid-40s, has remained a reclusive figure even to his followers, he urged militants in an audio message issued last month to conduct attacks against security forces and to attempt to break imprisoned brethren out of jail.

The raid comes as the United States scrambles to adjust its posture in Syria in the wake of Trump’s decision to curtail the U.S. military mission. Trump said earlier this month he would pull out nearly all of the approximately 1,000 troops in Syria amid a Turkish offensive against Syrian Kurdish troops who have been the Pentagon’s main battlefield partner there, but evolving plans now call for a larger residual force that could mean a substantial ongoing campaign.

Pentagon officials have warned that the Islamic State could use the further upheaval in Syria as an opportunity to stage a comeback. Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper last week acknowledged that more than 100 fighters had escaped from Kurdish-run prisons.

According to Javed Ali, a former White House senior director for counterterrorism, the death of Baghdadi would be a “huge blow,” but, like the killing of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden by U.S. forces in 2011, it “will not lead to strategic defeat,” he said. Ali noted that ISIS has proven resilient despite the physical loss of its caliphate. “That’s something we learned in the aftermath of the Bin Laden raid,” another high-risk mission.

The raid took place outside of the area where the U.S. military, which began airstrikes on Islamic State positions in Syria in 2014 and established a ground mission the following year, has focused its campaign in recent years. But there have been occasional U.S. attacks on militant targets in Idlib, including an airstrike last month.

While Idlib, the only province held by the opposition to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad after eight years of war, is controlled by a patchwork of rebel groups, the dominant military power is Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, which is loosely tied to al-Qaeda.

Syrian rebels ejected the Islamic State from Idlib in 2014, but in recent months fleeing Islamic State members have been showing up in the province. Some of those have been caught and executed by HTS, which is a fierce rival of the Islamic State. There are other extremist groups with a presence in Idlib who may have been willing to cooperate with the Islamic State, including Huras al-Din and Ansar al-Islam, both of them al-Qaeda affiliates.

(c) 2019 The Washington Post

{Matzav.com}