Video, New Details of Baghdadi Raid Released

Compound 'looks like a parking lot now'
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 31, 2019 6:11 AM CDT
Updated Oct 31, 2019 6:41 AM CDT

The Pentagon has released dramatic video and new details of the raid that caused the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Footage released by the military shows figures approaching the compound in Syria where the ISIS leader was hiding out, the Guardian reports. The military also released video that showed the compound being destroyed so it could not become a shrine for militants. "It looks pretty much like a parking lot with large potholes right now," said Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, head of US Central Command. McKenzie said that after Baghdadi was found hiding in a tunnel, he blew himself up along with two children, not three as earlier reported. McKenzie said both children were under 12.

McKenzie said 11 children were taken from the site unharmed, and four women and two men wearing suicide vests were killed after they refused to surrender, the AP reports. "The mission was a difficult, complex, and precise raid that was executed with the highest level of professionalism, said McKenzie, who warned that ISIS is likely to seek revenge. They will be "disjointed" while they search for a new leader, but "they will be dangerous," he said. "We suspect they will try some form of retribution attack, and we are postured and prepared for that." Gen. Mazloum Abdi, head of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, tells NBC that the informant who told his forces about Baghdadi's location was a member of the leader's inner circle who was in charge of finding hideouts—but was also secretly seeking revenge for the way ISIS members had treated his relatives. (A dog that played a key role in the raid will visit the White House next week.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X