A senior US defense official and a source familiar with the operation have reported that ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has allegedly been killed in a US military raid in northwest Syria.
According to the sources, al-Baghdadi is believed to have been killed during a raid by the US military in Syria but final confirmation is pending for DNA alnd biometric test results.
The defense official said that the ISIS leader was killed after he detonated a suicide vest during the raid while a source knowledgeable with the operation mentioned that the raid was conducted by special operations commandos. Locating al-Baghdadi was accomplished with the help of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley said that President Donald Trump is scheduled to make a major announcement Sunday at 9 a.m. and an administration official mentioned that the announcement is foreign policy related.
For the past five years, al-Baghdadi has been in hiding but in April, a video by the ISIS media wing al-Furqan was published, showing a man believed to be the ISIS leader. This was the first time he was seen since he spoke at the Great Mosque in Mosul in July 2014.
In February 2018, several US officials claimed that al-Baghdadi had been injured in a May 2017 airstrike and had to temporarily relinquish control of ISIS for up to five months.
He became the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) leader in 2010 and the group announced that it has absorbed an al Qaeda-backed militant group in Syria in 2013, forming the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS).
Officials of the White House stayed late Saturday evening to prepare for the announcement, which was held in the Diplomatic Reception Room. On Twitter, Trump wrote on Saturday evening “something very big has just happened!"
