“We are less safe for withdrawing our forces in Syria.” But the fight against ISIS is not over,” the official said. forces from Syria.īaghdadi’s death is “a blow to ISIS especially following the defeat of the caliphate. official, who criticized Trump’s abrupt decision to withdraw all but a few hundred U.S. The Delta Force operation that led to Baghdadi’s death would have been “extremely difficult” to pull off without a presence on the ground, said one senior U.S. intelligence our military in Syria and Iraq, intelligence breakthroughs by the Iraqi government, and an intelligence network cultivated by the SDF at U.S. “Trump rejected assessments and spilled classified intelligence, cut off our military operations at its knees with unplanned decisions like Syria, repeatedly treated Iraq with indifference, and appeared ready to throw out the relationship with the SDF only a few weeks ago,” Stroul said. forces from the border in early October, a move that was widely seen as a green light for the Turkish operation. Ankara moved into Syria days after Trump withdrew U.S. The operation was delayed for a full month by Turkey’s military activity at the border and the subsequent incursion into northeastern Syria, Mazloum said. His account was confirmed independently by the senior U.S. Mazloum Abdi, the SDF commander, was the only foreigner to know about the target, he told Foreign Policy through a translator. government to gather intelligence on Baghdadi’s whereabouts, according to Kurdish and U.S. The SDF spent five months working with the U.S. Thousands of Islamic State fighters and family members remain in makeshift camps across the region guarded by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). forces from the Turkey-Syria border, which precipitated a violent Turkish operation in northeast Syria. But officials and experts said it would not undo the damage caused by the president’s early October decision to withdraw U.S. ![]() “The world is now a much safer place.”īaghdadi’s death is a victory for Trump and his national security team, who have spent years hunting the world’s most wanted terrorist. ![]() 1 terrorist to justice,” Trump said at the White House Sunday, noting that the United States had suffered no casualties during the operation. “Last night, the United States brought the world’s No. special operations forces on the ground, was launched from Erbil, Iraq, and inside Syria, the official said. The operation, which involved helicopters and U.S. administration official told Foreign Policy. partners in the region, including Iraqi Kurdistan, a senior U.S. 26 after a complicated CIA intelligence-collection operation aided by Syrian Kurdish forces and other U.S. The raid by the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta, known as Delta Force, was carried out Oct. “Just as Osama bin Laden’s death did not lead to the elimination of Al Qaeda, I would expect that Baghdadi’s removal will not be the final death knell of ISIS-despite its significance.” “The incredible thing is that this operation succeeded despite all the ways in which the Trump Administration made it more difficult,” said Dana Stroul, a former Pentagon official who is now a senior fellow with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. ![]() President Donald Trump announced Sunday morning.īut while Baghdadi’s death marks a blow to the group, the Islamic State still poses a threat in Syria, particularly since hundreds of its fighters and their family members escaped detention during a Turkish-backed incursion this month that upended months of relative calm in the northeastern part of the country, officials and experts said. ![]() special operations forces killed the leader of the Islamic State militant group, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, during a raid in northwestern Syria, U.S.
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