(PM) – On late Saturday night, U.S. special operations forces killed ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi in the Idlib Countryside in Syria, according to Newsweek. Fox News also reported that ‘a high-value ISIS target’ believed to be Al Baghdadi was killed by U.S.-led forces on Saturday night, according to a military source.
According to the report, President Donald Trump approved the mission a week before it took place.
On Saturday, U.S. military helicopters and special forces targeted Baghdadi in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province. Officials with knowledge on the situation told Newsweek that Baghdadi was the target of the raids and was killed, but further verification is pending.
The report further states that members of a team from the Joint Special Operations Command carried out the operation. The raid took place in a location that has been under surveillance for an extended perioded of time.
President Trump tweeted that ‘something very big has just happened’ on Saturday night. A press conference is expected for Sunday morning.
Al-Baghdadi was announced as the leader of the ISIS terror group on May 16th, 2010. In 2014, ISIS announced the establishment of a worldwide caliphate and named Baghdadi as the caliph, which is a person considered as a leader of the entire Muslim community and a political-religious successor to the Islamic prophet Muhammad.
From there, Baghdadi infamously led Jihadists to seize a large part of the land in Iraq and Syria, killing tens of thousands of civilians across the countries.
Baghdadi’s terror group was also behind many attacks outside of the middle east. Some of these incidents include a series of suicide bombings in Sri Lanka, which killed over 250 people. In November 2017, ISIS fighters attacked a mosque in Egypt, killing at least 300 people.
ISIS also was responsible for attacks in Europe and the United States, including the Manchester bombing, which killed 22 people. ISIS also claimed responsibility for the 2016 Orlando shooting in a gay nightclub, killing 49 people.
In 2016, ISIS attacked a metro station and airport in Brussels, killing 33 people.
