According to a CNN report, President Trump declared ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdad dead at a press conference in the White House.
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed in a raid conducted by the US military in northwest Syria on Saturday, Trump said.
Baghdadi has been the subject of an international manhunt for years, and has been incorrectly reported dead or injured multiple times.
Baghdadi’s death is another defeat for ISIS, which has faced increasing pressure in recent years. The terror group lost its last stronghold in Syria in March.
Mean while ,Defense Secretary Mark Esper described the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as a “devastating blow” to a terrorist organization that has launched horrific attacks across the world.
“This is not just their leader, it’s their founder. He was an inspirational leader in many ways,” Esper told Jake Tapper Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Esper added that “we’re going to watch carefully next steps. And as a new leader and leaders pop up we’ll go after them as well.”
The secretary told Tapper that President Donald Trump approved the US raid “late last week” after being presented with different options. The objective, Esper said, was capturing him or if necessary, killing him.
“The President approved a raid on the target, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and if we didn’t capture him, of course, we were going to kill him,” Esper said. “He reviewed them, asked some great questions, chose the option that we thought gave us the highest probability of success and confirmation that the head of ISIS would be there and either captured and killed and then we executed from there.”
The secretary explained that al-Baghdadi refused to surrender to US forces before detonating a suicide vest and killing himself during a US military raid in northwest Syria on Saturday.
Source : CNN

FILE – This image made from video posted on a militant website July 5, 2014, purports to show the leader of the Islamic State group, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, delivering a sermon at a mosque in Iraq during his first public appearance. President Donald Trump declared victory over the Islamic State group in Syria in a tweet Thursday, Dec. 20, 2018, but the militants remain a deadly force, and U.S. partners warn a premature U.S. withdrawal will allow them to storm back. The jihadists still hold territory in Syria and top leaders, including the group’s self-styled caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, remain at large. (Militant video via AP, File)
