The Wall Street Journal - 28.10.2019

A6| Monday, October 28, 2019 ***** THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

“We didn’t need very much

help,” he said.

But an official in the Iraqi

National Intelligence Service

said the agency had provided

the U.S. with the coordinates

of Baghdadi’s location based

information gathered from

captured associates of Bagh-

dadi’s. Turkish and Kurdish

military leaders also said

they had intelligence concern-

ing Baghdadi.

U.S. officials wouldn’t say

how much the influx of intelli-

gence helped, but lawmakers

praised the cooperation. “We

can never do this stuff alone—

we have to have allies and

friends,” said Rep. Mac Thorn-

berry (R., Texas) a member of

the House Armed Services

Committee.

Mr. Trump described a pe-

riod of uncertainty that fol-

lowed the first confirmation of

Baghdadi’s location in north-

western Syria, saying the ad-

ministration believed at one

point the Islamic State leader

might change locations. The

leader of a group responsible

for beheadings, rapes and the

displacement of thousands of

people had become skilled at

remaining undetected: He

stockpiled large amounts of

cash, frequently changed loca-

tions and avoided using cell-

phones, Mr. Trump said.

But Baghdadi didn’t relo-

cate, and U.S. officials received

additional confirmation on his

location. The mission was on.

“building up the lives of peo-

ple in the region.”

“This is a game changer in

the war or terror,” Mr. Graham

said.

Mr. Trump didn’t notify

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of

California or other Democratic

leaders in Congress about the

operation, saying he wanted to

avoid information leaks, unlike

the Obama administration’s

decision to alert key lawmak-

ers in both parties ahead of

the 2011 raid in Pakistan that

killed al Qaeda leader Osama

bin Laden.

Mrs. Pelosi also faulted the

White House for notifying

Russia of the operation but

not Hill leaders.

“The House must be briefed

on this raid, which the Rus-

sians but not top Congressio-

nal Leadership were notified

of in advance, and on the Ad-

ministration’s overall strategy

in the region,” she said in a

news by offering condolences

and prayers on the messaging

platform Telegram, according

to Hisham al-Hashimi, an Iraqi

researcher who monitors the

group’s communication chan-

nels.

Mr. Trump praised various

parties to the hostilities in the

region for contributing to

Baghdadi’s elimination, includ-

ing Iraq, Syria, Russia, Turkey

and Kurdish fighters. Syrian,

Iraqi and Kurdish-led Syrian

Democratic Forces officials

each sought to claim credit for

supporting the operation.

A senior Turkish official

said that Turkey had advance

knowledge of the raid and pos-

sessed information indicating

Baghdadi was in Idlib village

some 48 hours before the op-

eration took place, but didn’t

confirm or deny whether that

intelligence was shared with

the U.S.

An Iraqi intelligence official

WORLD NEWS

Barisha, Syria, already knew the

tunnels under Baghdadi’s com-

pound were mostly dead-ends.

Troops brought robotic military

equipment to help chase him

through the tunnels, but didn’t

need it, the president said. And

Mr. Trump said he and his na-

tional security team watched

much of the evening unfold via

video streamed into the White

House Situation Room.

The hunt for Baghdadi has

been an American national se-

curity priority ever since the

U.S. and its mainly Kurdish al-

lies captured the militants’

last desert holdout in eastern

Syria in March.

One former member of Is-

lamic State who was held at a

counterterrorism prison in

northern Syria told The Wall

Street Journal earlier this year

that, while incarcerated, he

was interrogated by Ameri-

cans and asked about the

whereabouts of senior com-

manders, including Baghdadi.

During the past few weeks,

U.S. officials said, the search

came into sharper focus as in-

telligence revealed Baghdadi’s

location. “We had him

scoped,” Mr. Trump said.

The president said the U.S.

relied mostly on its own in-

telligence to find the ideolog-

ical leader of Islamic State.

On Friday, Defense Secre-

tary Mark Esper delayed his

return trip to Washington from

Brussels so he could call in to

a secret meeting of top mili-

tary officials taking place in a

secure Pentagon facility known

as the “tank.” At that meeting,

top officials were putting the

final touches on a plan to go

after the Islamic State leader,

according to U.S. officials.

On Saturday at 5 p.m. in

Washington, Mr. Trump en-

tered the White House Situa-

tion Room with Vice President

Pence and Joint Chiefs of Staff

Chairman Gen. Mark Milley,

among others. He said the de-

cision to approve the mission

was difficult.

Russia, Turkey, Iraq and

Syria were given advance

warning that U.S. troops would

be in the area, but weren’t told

why, Mr. Trump said.

A U.S. command and con-

trol base had been set up in

Erbil, Iraq, to allow military

officials to oversee the opera-

tion, a U.S. official said. Before

midnight Iraq time Saturday,

eight U.S. military helicopters

loaded with U.S. special-opera-

tions force team members,

equipment and military dogs

left from western Iraq.

When they reached the com-

pound where Baghdadi was

hiding, the helicopters landed

and the troops stormed the

building, engaging fighters on

the ground, U.S. officials said.

The president said they blew a

hole through a wall in the com-

pound and the troops were

greeted by a round of gunfire.

“They blasted their way in,

and then all hell broke loose,”

the president said. Mr. Trump

said there were many casualties

on Baghdadi’s side, while de-

clining to say how many died.

Amid the firefight, a U.S.

military dog chased Baghdadi

who attempted to escape

through a series of tunnels

along with three of his children,

Mr. Trump said. Baghdadi deto-

nated his suicide vest at the

end of one closed-end tunnel.

A field analysis on the re-

mains in the tunnel provided for

a preliminary conclusion that

the person who died there was

Baghdadi. A conclusive analysis

was completed overnight, cor-

roborating that conclusion.

The troops were in the

compound for about two hours

in all, Mr. Trump said.

The special forces then

boarded the helicopters for a

flight away from the area. When

the helicopters safely landed,

the president posted his provoc-

ative and cryptic messages on

social media at 9:23 p.m.

WASHINGTON—The chop-
ping of blades from eight U.S.
military helicopters roused
startled residents in northwest-
ern Syria on Saturday around
midnight, an unusual sound for
an area close to the relative
quiet of the Turkish border.

Exchanges of gunfire fol-
lowed for the next several
hours until a war plane deliv-
ered the final airstrikes, wit-
nesses said. Then, back in
Washington, President Trump
tweeted: “Something very big
has just happened!”
It soon became apparent, as
Mr. Trump confirmed Sunday
morning, that Abu Bakr al-
Baghdadi, the leader of Islamic
State, was dead.
The story of Baghdadi’s final
moments is also one of Ameri-
can intelligence gathering, mili-
tary force and astonishing war-
fare technology. The special
operations forces who landed in

ByMichael C. Bender,

Raja Abdulrahimand

Nancy A. Youssef

Inside the Mission That Killed Baghdadi

U.S. studied networks

of tunnels and received

offers of tips as it

closed in on militant

Deir

Ezzour

Aleppo Raqqa

Idlib

SYRIA

TURKEY

IRAQ

50miles

50km

Oppositionforces

Kurdishforcesandallies Turkisharmy/oppositionforces

Syriangovernment

Areas of control in Syria, Oct. 21

Barisha

Siteofraid

Source: Conflict Monitor by IHS Markit

statement.

Baghdadi’s death came

seven months after U.S.-sup-

ported forces seized the last of

Islamic State’s territory but

still represented a significant

loss to the group, U.S. officials

said.

“This is a major blow to

them,” U.S. Defense Secretary

Mark Esper said in an inter-

view on CNN following Mr.

Trump’s remarks.

Islamic State didn’t confirm

or deny reports of its leader’s

death, but some of the group’s

supporters responded to the

‘He was a sick and

depraved man and

now he’s gone,’ said

the president.

Baghdadi’s death during a na-
tionally televised address at
the White House, where he
spoke for 48 minutes about an
operation he likened to watch-
ing a movie in the Situation
Room. The development, he
said, showed the reach of the
U.S. military and its ability to
bring terrorists to justice.
“He was a sick and de-
praved man and now he’s
gone,” Mr. Trump said of
Baghdadi. “He died like a dog.
He died like a coward. The
world is a much safer place.”
While the outcome of the
raid was applauded across the
political spectrum, the opera-
tion highlighted divisions in
Washington, heightened by a
House impeachment inquiry
into Mr. Trump and sharp bi-
partisan criticism of his deci-
sion to remove more than
1,000 U.S. forces from Syria.
At least 50 members of U.S.
special-operations forces tar-
geted Baghdadi in a raid near
Idlib, officials said, an opera-
tion resulting from intelli-
gence gathered in recent
weeks by the Central Intelli-
gence Agency, the military and
U.S. allies. No U.S. personnel

ContinuedfromPageOne

U.S. forces fought their way into Baghdadi’s compound and chased him into a tunnel where he killed himself, President Trump said. Witnesses say the compound, above, was then destroyed in an airstrike.

OMAR HAJ KADOUR/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

were reported injured, though

a military dog that was hurt

while pursuing Baghdadi into

the tunnel was evacuated with

U.S. troops. Officials gave no

estimates of the number of

people killed in the operation,

but they are thought to in-

clude two of Baghdadi’s wives.

Mr. Trump said the force

encountered sporadic gunfire

as it flew, then battled its way

toward the compound where

Baghdadi was believed to be

hiding. The militant leader

fled into what Mr. Trump de-

scribed as a dead-end tunnel

with three children, then deto-

nated the explosive vest he

was wearing.

The withdrawal of some

U.S. troops in recent weeks

cleared the way for Turkey to

launch a cross-border incur-

sion against Kurdish-led fight-

ers it considers terrorists. Mr.

Trump had already begun to

reverse himself after declaring

the pullout, with the White

House saying that about 200

troops would remain in north-

eastern Syria to safeguard oil

fields there.

Since then, U.S. officials

said Mr. Trump is considering

leaving hundreds of troops in

Syria for that purpose and is

considering deploying dozens

of tanks to support them.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R.,

S.C.) said Baghdadi’s death

created an opportunity to re-

focus U.S. strategy in Syria

around reducing the U.S.’s

presence, putting Kurds in

control of oil resources and

said the country had assisted

the U.S. with identifying Bagh-

dadi’s location.

Mazloum Abdi, the head of

the Kurdish-led Syrian Demo-

cratic Forces that coordinated

with the U.S.-led coalition

against Islamic State, wrote on

Twitter that the operation re-

sulted from five months of

joint intelligence work with

the U.S.

U.S. officials wouldn’t say

whether those intelligence

sources were instrumental in

Saturday’s raid.

Videos shared by local ac-

tivists said to portray the op-

eration’s aftermath showed a

charred vehicle, dead bodies

and a demolished house. The

Wall Street Journal couldn’t

verify the footage indepen-

dently.

Baghdadi, who was first

seen declaring the terror

group’s global ambitions in

July 2014 from the Iraqi city

of Mosul, was last publicly

heard from in September,

when he sought to rally fol-

lowers in an audio message.

He was last seen in a video

message released in April—the

first such known footage in

nearly five years.

A territory the size of Dela-

ware, Idlib has become the

last rebel stronghold against

President Bashar al-Assad of

Syria since the 2011 uprising.

—Isabel Coles in Baghdad,

Nancy A. Youssef in

Washington and David

Gauthier-Villars in Istanbul

contributed to this article.

ISIS

Leader

Is Dead

Shrinking Territory

IslamicState’scaliphatein

IraqandSyriacollapsedin

March.

Jan. 2015

SYRIA IRAQ

Jan. 2016

Jan. 2017 Jan. 2018 Late March 2019

Source: Conflict Monitor by IHS Markit

Islamic State control

100 miles

100 km