On Sunday, President Donald Trump announced the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State. Trump said in an address to the nation from the White House: “A brutal killer, one who has caused so much hardship and death, has violently been eliminated. He will never again harm another innocent man, woman or child. He died like a dog. He died like a coward. The world is now a much safer place.”
Trump said he was able to watch most of the operation in the situation room as it happened. Trump said he and his national security team gathered in the White House situation room shortly after 5 p.m. to watch the mission. A short time later, eight helicopters carrying the special operations team took off from an undisclosed location in a nearby country for a 1 hour, 10 minute flight to al-Baghdadi’s compound. The president said that flight was a dangerous part of the mission given they would be flying over Russian- and extremist-held territory.
There were no American troops wounded in the operation, but a military dog was hurt when al-Baghdadi’s vest was detonated and the tunnel collapsed, Trump said.
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