WASHINGTON (MaceNews) – The ISIS leader who spread terror and built a Caliphate only to see it destroyed,. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, killed himself Saturday by detonating a suicide vest in a Delta Force raid authorized by President Trump, according to various reports.
The president scheduled a 9 a.m. ET on-camera statement Sunday to confirm the apparent death of the world’s most-wanted terrorist, on whose head for years was an offer of a $25 million reward for information leading to his capture.
Newsweek reported some Iraqi entities claimed to have generated tips that located Baghdadi in the northwestern Syria province of Idlib, near Turkey’s border, triggering the plans a week ago for the Delta Force raid that may have resulted in the death of other ISIS leaders among nine people killed.
Baghdadi, only seen by the outside world in a handful of video messages, had originally been a conservative Iraqi cleric who joined al Qaida and then inherited the leadership of the Islamic State when his predecessor was killed.
In a message last month, Baghdadi had called for ISIS prisoners to escape as Kurdish force guards faced the departure of a small U.S. troop presence that had served as a barrier to the subsequent incursion of Turkey forces establishing a large buffer zone at Turkey’s border with Syria.
President Trump had signaled the development with a tweet at 9:23 p.m. tweet Saturday night that said only, “Something very big has just happened.”