WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump announced Sunday that a U.S. special operations raid in Syria over the weekend had resulted in the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State militant group.
"Last night, the United States brought the world's No. 1 terrorist leader to justice," Trump said in a nationally televised address from the White House. "Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is dead."
As U.S. troops bore down on al-Baghdadi, he fled into a "dead-end" tunnel with three of his children, Trump said, and detonated a suicide vest, killing himself and the children. "He was a sick and depraved man, and now he's gone," Trump said. "He died like a dog. He died like a coward."
Al-Baghdadi's identity was confirmed by a DNA test conducted on-site, Trump said.
The raid drew praise from Trump's Republican allies. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic lawmakers criticized the president's decision not to notify Congress in advance as his predecessors did in similar circumstances, as he said he did not trust them to refrain from leaking the information.
Trump said American forces, carried by eight helicopters through airspace controlled by Russia with Moscow's permission, were met by hostile fire when they landed. They entered the targeted building by blowing a hole through the wall rather than by taking a chance on a fortified main entrance. No Americans were killed in the operation, though Trump said one of the military dogs was injured.
The White House released a photograph of Trump surrounded by top advisers on Saturday in the Situation Room as he monitored the raid on al-Baghdadi's hideout in Syria, much like the famed image of then-President Barack Obama watching the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in 2011.
[Video not showing up above? Click here to watch » https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWOINZB1cq0]
The son of a sheepherder from Iraq, al-Baghdadi, 48, was arrested by occupying American forces in 2004. He emerged radicalized after 11 months of captivity, and he came to assemble a potent terrorist force that overtook al-Qaida.
Al-Baghdadi has been the focus of an intense international manhunt since 2014, when his terrorist network seized huge parts of Iraq and Syria with the intention of creating a caliphate for Islamic extremists. He was believed to hew to extreme security measures, even when meeting with his most-trusted associates.
The discovery of al-Baghdadi's location came after the arrest and interrogation of one of al-Baghdadi's wives and a courier during the summer, two U.S. officials said. The location was said to have surprised his American pursuers because it was deep inside a part of northwestern Syria controlled by rival al-Qaida groups.
One official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational details, said that troops from Delta Force, an elite military unit, conducted the operation with support from the CIA and Kurdish forces. The official said al-Baghdadi had been located in large part thanks to the fact that U.S. intelligence agencies had intensified their focus on Idlib province because of militants there with loose links to al-Qaida.
For Trump, a successful operation against al-Baghdadi could prove both a strategic victory in the battle against the Islamic State and a politically useful counterpoint to critics in both parties who have assailed him in recent weeks for his decision to withdraw troops from northern Syria, which allowed Turkey to attack and push out America's Kurdish allies.
But experts have long warned that even eliminating the leader of terrorist organizations like the Islamic State does not eliminate the threat. Al-Baghdadi has been incorrectly reported as killed before, and American military officials were concerned that Trump, who posted a cryptic message on Twitter on Saturday night to tease his Sunday announcement, was so eager to announce the development that he was getting ahead of the forensics.
A Defense Department official said before the president's announcement that there was a strong belief -- "near certainty" -- that al-Baghdadi was dead, but that a full DNA analysis was not complete.
The official said that with any other president, the Pentagon would wait for absolute certainty before announcing victory. But Trump was impatient to get the news out, the official said, and Defense Secretary Mark Esper appeared on the Sunday morning shows as a last-minute addition to the programs to promote the operation.
LEADERS REACT
Trump invited Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., usually a strong ally who had been the most outspoken critic of his Syria decision, to join him for the speech on Sunday morning. Trump then sent Graham to brief reporters from the lectern in the White House briefing room, an unusual spectacle for a lawmaker.
Graham called the raid "a game-changer in the war on terror," while adding that "the war is by no means over." He said Trump had reassured him on his concerns.
"The president's determination over time has paid off," Graham said. "We don't give him enough credit for destroying the caliphate."
He added: "This is a moment when President Trump's worst critics should say, 'Well done, Mr. President.'"
Democrats were not quick to take the advice. Former Vice President Joe Biden, a leading Democratic candidate for president, released a statement praising the military and intelligence officials involved in the raid but not mentioning Trump at all.
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the House Intelligence Committee chairman who is leading an impeachment inquiry into whether Trump abused his power by pressuring Ukraine to investigate his domestic political rivals, called the raid "an important victory" and said "good riddance" to "a bloodthirsty killer" in al-Baghdadi. But speaking on ABC's This Week, Schiff offered no congratulations to Trump himself.
Instead, he said the success of the raid did not absolve Trump of the decision to abandon the Kurds by pulling out.
"It's a disastrous mistake to betray the Kurds this way," he said. "I think it just improves the Russian position in the Middle East, something they desperately want."
But Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., a former Army Green Beret, said that "We must keep in mind that we were able to strike Baghdadi because we had forces in the region."
"We must keep [the Islamic State] from returning by staying on offense," he said.
In an email, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Wesley Clark said the fight against violent extremists is far from over, despite al-Baghdadi's death.
"It's good to take him down, but twenty years experience with these terrorist groups has shown that targeting leaders degrades their capabilities and disrupts their planning, but doesn't usually end their threat. New leaders step up, and soon become competent," Clark wrote.
"ISIS has metastasized from the Mideast into Africa and Asia. ... So, while taking out Al-Baghdadi is useful, it is likely only a chapter in a long book," Clark said, using an acronym for the Islamic State. "Fighting ISIS will be likely to entail a decades-long effort."
INFORMING CONGRESS
Pelosi on Sunday called for the White House to brief lawmakers on the raid, noting that Trump informed the Russians of the Islamic State leader's death before telling congressional leadership.
The statement from Pelosi came after Trump told reporters that he did not inform the House speaker of the raid because he "wanted to make sure this kept secret."
U.S. presidents typically follow the protocol of contacting congressional leaders, regardless of their political party, when a high-level military operation is conducted.
"The House must be briefed on this raid, which the Russians but not top congressional leadership were notified of in advance, and on the administration's overall strategy in the region," Pelosi said. "Our military and allies deserve strong, smart and strategic leadership from Washington."
Trump said Sunday that he had contacted Graham and Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., ahead of his announcement in the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House. He called Burr "a great gentleman" and Graham "a very strong hawk" who "agrees with what we're doing now."
Asked whether he had informed Pelosi, Trump replied: "No, I didn't. I didn't do that. I wanted to make sure this kept secret. I don't want to have men lost, and women. I don't want to have people lost."
On This Week, Schiff said Trump did not contact him, Pelosi nor any of the other congressional leaders with whom the White House typically shares information on national security and intelligence matters.
"In terms of notifying the Gang of Eight, that wasn't done," Schiff said, referring to the House speaker and minority leader, the Senate majority and minority leaders, and the chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate intelligence committees.
Schiff said Trump made "a mistake" by not informing congressional leaders of the raid, though he noted that such notifications are, "frankly, more important when things go wrong." The executive branch usually informs the Gang of Eight, Schiff said, so that in the event that a mission goes awry, the White House can at least say Congress was made aware of the risks and was given the opportunity to provide feedback.
Susan Rice, who served as national security adviser to President Barack Obama, said Sunday that the Obama administration typically sought to keep the Gang of Eight informed "as a matter of courtesy."
In May 2011, for instance, when bin Laden was killed, then-House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., told reporters that the Obama administration had been keeping him abreast of developments over the course of several months.
"I've been talking to Mr. Panetta over these four months and over this weekend," Rogers said, referring to then-CIA Director Leon Panetta. "So we knew when the president authorized it, and we had some discussions that it was likely to happen, and then got a call after it happened."
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., on Sunday called for the White House to answer lawmakers' questions.
"New Yorkers know all too well the destruction a small group of terrorists thousands of miles overseas can cause from so far away," Schumer said in a statement.
He added that he looks forward to a briefing about the raid and the administration's next steps against the Islamic State.
Information for this article was contributed by Peter Baker, Eric Schmitt and Helene Cooper of The New York Times; by Zeke Miller, Deb Riechmann, Robert Burns, Eric Tucker, Jill Colvin, Zeina Karam, Qassim Abdul-Zahra and Zeynep Bilginsoy of The Associated Press; by Missy Ryan, Dan Lamothe, Liz Sly, Souad Mekhennet, Souad Mekhennet, Kareem Fahim, Mustafa Salim, Felicia Sonmez, Shane Harris, Joby Warrick and Ellen Nakashima of The Washington Post; and by Frank E. Lockwood of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
A Section on 10/28/2019