WarSclerotic

Syria’s top Kurdish commander on Sunday hailed a “historic operation” and joint intelligence work following US media reports that Islamic State chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had been killed during an American raid.

Mazloum Abdi, head of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces that was the US’s main local ally in years of battles against the Islamic State group in Syria, said the operation was the result of “joint intelligence work.”

Turkey’s Defense Ministry told the Reuters news agency that Turkish and American military authorities exchanged and coordinated information ahead of the US strike thought to have killed the elusive chief of the Islamic State terror group in the Idlib region of Syria.

Iraqi state television on Sunday broadcast footage of what it said was the site of the raid, with a crater and blood-stained clothing on the ground, Reuters reported. The broadcaster also quoted an terror expert who said Iraqi intelligence agencies had also helped to locate Baghdadi.

This image made from video posted on a militant website July 5, 2014, shows the leader of the Islamic State group, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, delivering a sermon at a mosque in Iraq. (AP/Militant video, File)

The White House announced US President Donald Trump would make a “major statement” Sunday at 9:00 a.m. (1300 GMT), without providing details.

A war monitor said US helicopters dropped forces in an area of Idlib where “groups linked to the Islamic State group” were present.

The helicopters targeted a home and a car outside the village of Barisha in an operation that killed nine people including an IS senior leader called Abu Yamaan as well as a child and two women, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

It was not immediately clear if Baghdadi had been in the area, Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said.

An AFP correspondent outside the village of Barisha in Idlib province saw what appeared to have been a minibus scorched to cinders by the side of the road.

A resident in the area who gave his name as Abdel Hameed said he rushed to the place of the attack after he heard helicopters, gunfire and strikes in the night.

“The home had collapsed and next to it there was a destroyed tent and vehicle. There were two people killed inside,” he told AFP.

‘Historic op’

US media cited multiple government sources as saying Baghdadi may have killed himself with a suicide vest as US special operations forces descended.

He was the target of the secretly planned operation that was approved by Trump, officials said according to US media.

The commander-in-chief of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces who have been fighting IS in Syria said the operation came after “joint intelligence work” with American forces.

In this photo from January 24, 2019, Mazloum Abdi (Kobani), commander-in-chief of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), speaks with AFP during an interview in the countryside outside the city of Hasakah in northeastern Syria. (Delil Souleiman/AFP)

“A historic operation is successful as a consequence of joint intelligence work with the United States of America,” Mazloum Abdi said on Twitter shortly after the news broke.

From the outskirts of Barisha, an inhabitant of a camp for the displaced also heard helicopters followed by what he described as coalition airstrikes.

They “were flying very low, causing great panic among the people,” Ahmed Hassawi told AFP by phone.

The AFP correspondent said the area of the nighttime strikes had been cordoned off by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, Syria’s former Al-Qaeda affiliate controlling Idlib.

Long pursued by the US-led coalition against IS, Baghdadi has been erroneously reported dead several times in recent years. In 2017, Russian officials said there was a “high probability” he had been killed in a Russian airstrike on the outskirts of Raqqa, but US officials later said they believed he was still alive.

US officials told ABC News that biometric work was under way to firm up the identification of those killed in the raid.

Two Iranian officials told the Reuters news agency that Tehran was informed by Syrian sources that Baghdadi had been killed.

US President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference with Italian President Sergio Mattarella in the East Room of the White House, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Trump earlier tweeted, without explaining, “Something very big has just happened!”

Baghdadi’s fighters captured a contiguous stretch of territory across Iraq and Syria, including key cities, and in June 2014, it announced its own state — or caliphate.

Baghdadi became the declared caliph of the newly renamed Islamic State group. Under his leadership, the group became known for macabre massacres and beheadings — often posted online on militant websites — and a strict adherence to an extreme interpretation of Islamic law.

But several offensives in both countries whittled down that territory, and in March the US-backed SDF ousted the extremist group from its last patch of territory in eastern Syria.

$25 million reward

Baghdadi — an Iraqi native believed to be around 48 years old — was rarely seen.

After 2014 he disappeared from sight, only surfacing in a video in April this year with a wiry gray and red beard and an assault rifle at his side, as he encouraged followers to “take revenge” for IS members who had been killed.

This image made from video posted on a militant website on April 29, 2019, purports to show the leader of the Islamic State group, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, being interviewed by his group’s Al-Furqan media outlet. (Al-Furqan media via AP)

His reappearance was seen as a reassertion of his leadership of a group that, while it had lost its physical territory, had spread from the Middle East to Asia and Africa and claimed several deadly attacks in Europe.

But Baghdadi remained on the run. The US State Department posted a $25 million reward for information on his whereabouts.

Under Baghdadi, the State Department said, IS “has been responsible for the deaths of thousands of civilians in the Middle East, including the brutal murder of numerous civilian hostages from Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States.”

In September, the group released an audio message said to be from Baghdadi praising the operations of IS affiliates in other regions.

It also called on scattered IS fighters to regroup and try to free thousands of their comrades held in jails and camps by the SDF in northeastern Syria.

Undated file photo of Islamic State fighters holding up their weapons and waving flags in their convey of vehicles on a road leading to Iraq from Raqqa, Syria. (Jihadist website via AP)

Idlib is controlled by former Al-Qaeda affiliate HTS, and includes the presence of Al-Qaeda-linked fighters from the Hurras al-Deen group as well as IS cells, according to the Observatory.

Baghdadi was born Ibrahim Awwad Ibrahim Ali al-Badri al-Samarrai in 1971 in Samarra, Iraq, and adopted his nom de guerre early on. Because of anti-US militant activity, he was detained by US forces in Iraq and sent to Bucca prison in February 2004, according to IS-affiliated websites.

He was released 10 months later, after which he joined the al-Qaeda branch in Iraq of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. He later assumed control of the group, known at the time as the Islamic State of Iraq.

After Syria’s civil war erupted in 2011, Baghdadi set about pursuing a plan for a medieval-style Islamic State, or caliphate. He merged a group known as the Nusra Front, which initially welcomed moderate Sunni rebels who were part of the uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad, with a new one known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Al-Qaeda’s central leadership refused to accept the takeover and broke with Baghdadi.

WASHINGTON (AFP) — US President Donald Trump on Sunday said that elusive Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed, dying “like a dog,” in a daring, nighttime raid by US special forces deep in northwest Syria.

Trump told the nation in a televised address from the White House that US forces killed a “large number” of Islamic State fighters during the raid which culminated in cornering Baghdadi in a tunnel, where he set off a suicide vest.

“He ignited his vest, killing himself,” Trump said.

“He died after running into a dead end tunnel, whimpering and crying and screaming all the way,” Trump said, adding that three of Baghdadi’s children also died in the blast.

Trump said that the raid — which required flying more than an hour by helicopter each way from an undisclosed base — had been accomplished with help from Russia, Syria, Turkey and Iraq.

Special forces “executed a dangerous and daring nighttime raid in northwestern Syria and accomplished their mission in grand style.”

At its height, Islamic State controlled swaths of Iraq and Syria in a self-declared state known as a caliphate, characterized by the brutal imposition of a puritanical version of Islam.

In addition to oppressing the people it governed, Islamic State planned or inspired terrorism attacks across Europe, while using expertise in social media to lure large numbers of foreign volunteers.

It took years of war, in which Islamic State became notorious for mass executions and sickening hostage murders, before the group’s final slice of territory in Syria was seized this March.

The death of Baghdadi comes as a big boost for Trump, whose abrupt decision to withdraw a small but effective deployment of US forces from Syria caused fears that it would give Islamic State remnants and sleeper cells a chance to regroup.

Trump took a storm of criticism, including from his own usually loyal Republican Party.

This image made from video posted on a militant website on April 29, 2019, purports to show the leader of the Islamic State group, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, being interviewed by his group’s Al-Furqan media outlet. (Al-Furqan media via AP)

In keeping with his liking for showmanship, Trump had teased the news late Saturday with an enigmatic tweet saying merely that “Something very big has just happened!”

Scorched vehicle

A war monitor said US helicopters dropped forces in an area of Syria’s Idlib province where “groups linked to the Islamic State group” were present.

The helicopters targeted a home and a car outside the village of Barisha in Idlib province, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which is based in Britain but relies on a network of sources inside Syria for its information.

The operation killed nine people including an IS senior leader called Abu Yamaan as well as a child and two women, it said.

An AFP correspondent outside Barisha saw a minibus scorched to cinders by the side of the road, and windows shattered in a neighbor’s house surrounded by red agricultural land dotted with olive trees.

A resident in the area who gave his name as Abdel Hameed said he rushed to the place of the attack after he heard helicopters, gunfire and strikes in the night.

“The home had collapsed and next to it there was a destroyed tent and vehicle. There were two people killed inside” the car, he said.

From the outskirts of Barisha, an inhabitant of a camp for the displaced also heard helicopters followed by what he described as US-led coalition airstrikes.

They “were flying very low, causing great panic among the people,” Ahmed Hassawi told AFP by phone.

Another resident, who gave his name as Abu Ahmad and lives less than 100 meters away from the site of the destroyed house, said he heard voices “speaking a foreign language” during the raid.

The AFP correspondent said the area of the nighttime operation had been cordoned off by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a group dominated by members of Syria’s former al-Qaeda affiliate controlling Idlib.

Between the trees, bulldozers could be seen at the site, clearing out the rubble.

‘Joint intelligence’

Turkey, which has been waging an offensive against the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northeast Syria in recent weeks, had “advance knowledge” about the raid, a senior Turkish official said.

“To the best of my knowledge, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi arrived at this location 48 hours prior to the raid,” the official told AFP.

The commander-in-chief of the SDF, which has been fighting IS in Syria, said the operation came after “joint intelligence work” with American forces.

Trump also said that Iraq had been “very good” over the raid.

He said no US soldiers were wounded, despite “doing a lot of shooting” and “a lot of blasting.” The only US casualty was an injured military dog in the tunnel with the trapped Islamic State leader.

Long pursued by the US-led coalition against IS, Baghdadi has been erroneously reported dead several times in recent years.

$25 million reward

Baghdadi — an Iraqi native believed to be around 48 years old — was rarely seen.

After 2014 he disappeared from sight, only surfacing in a video in April with a wiry gray and red beard and an assault rifle at his side, as he encouraged followers to “take revenge” after the group’s territorial defeat.

His reappearance was seen as a reassertion of his leadership of a group that — despite its March defeat — has spread from the Middle East to Asia and Africa and claimed several deadly attacks in Europe.

The US State Department had posted a $25 million reward for information on his whereabouts.

In September, the group released an audio message said to be from Baghdadi praising the operations of IS affiliates in other regions.

It also called on scattered IS fighters to regroup and try to free thousands of their comrades held in jails and camps by the SDF in northeastern Syria.

Citing recent warnings by IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday said the possibility of conflict necessitated the swift formation of a broad unity government to respond to security threats.

“The Middle East is again in turmoil,” Netanyahu said during a weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem. “Lebanon, Iraq, and Syria are in turmoil, and Iran controls all these areas. We need to make tough decisions that require a broad-shouldered government.”

“Iran’s actions in the Middle East require very difficult decisions. What is said by the chief of staff is not spin — it is a reflection of the situation — so establishing a broad government is a top security issue.”

Netanyahu failed to negotiate a coalition following last month’s Knesset election, prompting him to declare that he was unable to form a government and causing President Reuven Rivlin to tap his primary rival Benny Gantz, a former IDF chief of staff who heads the centrist Blue and White Party, to try his hand at bringing together Israel’s disparate political factions.

IDF chief of staff Aviv Kohavi holds a meeting around a campfire with senior Air Force officers on October 23, 2019. (Israel Defense Forces)

The prime minister is set to meet with Gantz in Tel Aviv on Sunday, the Likud and Blue and White parties said in a joint statement on Saturday. The meeting will take place Sunday afternoon at the Israel Defense Forces headquarters in Tel Aviv following an invitation by Gantz.

Gantz received the mandate to form a government from Rivlin on Wednesday evening and has already begun speaking with party leaders and sending out invitations to meet to negotiate their potential entry into the Blue and White-led coalition he hopes to establish.

According to reports in the Hebrew media, Gantz could offer Netanyahu a “compromise deal” that would force him to choose between including his religious allies in the coalition and being prime minister first in any premiership rotation deal.

Likud has stressed that Netanyahu is negotiating on behalf of the 55-member bloc of right-wing and religious parties loyal to him, without whom he will not enter a coalition. Blue and White has previously rejected this negotiation position outright.

Netanyahu’s remarks at Sunday’s cabinet meeting came on the heels of Kohavi’s warning last Thursday that Israel is facing a threat of conflict in both the north and the south, forcing the military to rapidly prepare for war.

“In the northern and southern arenas the situation is tense and precarious and poised to deteriorate into a conflict despite the fact that our enemies are not interested in war. In light of this, the IDF has been in an accelerated process of preparation,” Kohavi said.

President Reuven Rivlin presents Blue and White party leader Benny Gantz with the mandate to form a new Israeli government, after Benjamin Netanyahu’s failure to form one, at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem on October 23, 2019. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

In a briefing to reporters, the IDF chief said the primary threat facing Israel comes from Iran and its proxies in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq.

“The main strategic threat to the State of Israel lies in the northern arena: with the entrenchment of Iranian and other forces in Syria, and with [the Hezbollah terror group’s] precision missile project,” Kohavi said, referring to an effort by the Iran-backed Lebanese militia to develop highly accurate long-range projectiles.

Israel sees precision-guided missiles as a far greater threat than that posed by Hezbollah’s existing arsenal of more than 100,000 rockets and missiles as the improved projectiles could easily overpower the IDF’s air defense systems and destroy the country’s critical infrastructure, something the terror group would struggle to do with its current arsenal.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Friday warned that ongoing massive anti-government protests in Lebanon could plunge the country into civil war, and accused Israel and other countries of working to take advantage of the demonstrations to fuel unrest.

The head of the Iran-backed terror organization spoke as the protests, which initially were triggered by new proposed taxes that followed public spending cuts, dragged on into a ninth day.

Nasrallah said though the protests began as a popular expression of anger against corruption and deepening economic crisis, they were now being exploited by political rivals and international and regional powers who oppose Hezbollah.

“What does it mean that the Israelis get Lebanese among those who are in the Zionist entity to the border to show solidarity with the protests,” he was quoted saying by Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television network. It was not immediately clear what he was referring to. An Iranian-armed proxy, Hezbollah seeks to destroy Israel.

In an unusual move, Nasrallah spoke with a Lebanese flag behind him instead of the Hezbollah banner.

Nasrallah warned Lebanon could descend into civil war, conjuring fear of the country’s war that lasted 15 years and ended in 1990.

“I’m not threatening anyone, I’m describing the situation,” he said. “We are not afraid for the resistance [Hezbollah], we are afraid for the country.”

He did, however, praise the protesters for pressuring the government to back away from tax hikes, but reiterated his opposition to the resignation of the cabinet.

“In view of the difficult financial, economic and living situation in the country, in view of security and political tensions that are prevailing in the region … a vacuum will lead to chaos, to collapse,” he said, according to the Reuters news agency.

Hezbollah is a major political player in Lebanon and with its allies holds the majority in the cabinet. It is the only movement not to have disarmed after Lebanon’s 15-year civil war.

Nasrallah also called on his supporters to leave the streets after clashes broke out in Beirut between them and anti-graft protesters.

Unprecedented protests have erupted in some Hezbollah strongholds, but some of its supporters have also taken offense to slogans against their leader.

In the capital’s main square, protesters fell silent to listen to Nasrallah’s speech broadcast on loudspeakers.

As it neared its end, the police moved in to separate Hezbollah supporters from the rest of the demonstrators, an AFP correspondent said.

Lebanese security forces stand between Hezbollah (foreground) and anti-government protesters (background) at Riad al-Solh square in the capital Beirut on October 25, 2019. (AFP)

Before they retreated, Hezbollah backers threw rocks, plastics bottles and branches at the other demonstrators, who responded in kind chanting “Revolution.”

Scuffles also broke out in central Beirut before the speech, when Hezbollah supporters entered the area to reject chants against Nasrallah, who was named by the protest movement as one among the political elite who must leave.

“Nasrallah is more honorable than all of them,” the pro-Hezbollah protesters chanted. They clashed with the protesters who were previously in the square until riot police tried to break up the fight. The incidents came shortly before Nasrallah was due to speak.

Anger has been building among Hezbollah supporters because the protesters named him, along with other corrupt politicians. At least two protesters were injured. The riot police encircled the pro-Hezbollah protesters, who carried batons, separating them from the other protesters.

But tension returned when the protesters moved down the main road, lobbing stones and at one point attacking a TV crew from a station aligned with a Hezbollah rival. Some protesters chanted for calm.

A Hezbollah supporter, right, fights with a Lebanese riot policeman, left, after a clashes erupted between Hezbollah and anti-government protesters near the government palace, in downtown Beirut, Lebanon, October 25, 2019. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

Banks, universities and schools remained closed Friday, the ninth day of nationwide protests, which initially were triggered by new proposed taxes that followed public spending cuts.

The demonstrators — who have thronged towns and cities across Lebanon — have been demanding the removal of the entire political class, accusing many across different parties of systematic corruption.

Numbers have declined since Sunday, when hundreds of thousands took over Beirut and other cities in the largest demonstrations in years, but could grow again over the weekend.

Lebanon’s largely sectarian political parties have been wrong-footed by the cross-communal nature of the protests.

Drawing in Christians and Muslims, Shiite, Sunni and Druze, the street movement has largely been peaceful — evolving into celebrations after nightfall.

Waving Lebanese national flags rather than the partisan colors normally paraded at demonstrations, protesters have been demanding the resignation of all of Lebanon’s political leaders.

“All of them means all,” has been a popular slogan.

Hezbollah supporters stand in front of Lebanese riot policemen, as they shout slogans praising the terror groups leader Hassan Nassrallah, during a protest near the government palace, in downtown Beirut, Lebanon, October 25, 2019. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

In attempts to calm the anger, Prime Minister Saad Hariri has pushed through a package of economic reforms, while President Michel Aoun offered Thursday to meet with representatives of the demonstrators to discuss their demands.

But those measures have been given short shrift by demonstrators, many of whom want the government to resign to pave the way for new elections.

The unprecedented mass protests come amid a deepening economic crisis in Lebanon. The country is one of the world’s most indebted nations, with public debt over 150 percent of the gross domestic product. The protesters accuse the politicians of amassing wealth even as the country gets poorer.