WASHINGTON -- Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the shadowy leader of the Islamic State militant group who became one of the world's most wanted men, is believed dead after being targeted by a U.S. military raid in Syria.
A U.S. official told The Associated Press late Saturday that al-Baghdadi was targeted in Syria's Idlib province. The official said confirmation that the Islamic State chief was killed in an explosion is pending. No other details were available.
Three officials confirmed to Bloomberg News that the raid in northern Syria had targeted al-Baghdadi. Newsweek reported that al-Baghdadi was believed to have been killed in the operation and that further verification was pending.
President Donald Trump on Saturday night teased a major announcement, tweeting that "Something very big has just happened!" A White House spokesman, Hogan Gidley, would say only that the president would be making a "major statement" this morning.
White House communications aides declined to comment when asked to confirm that the news Trump will announce is about al-Baghdadi.
The strike came amid concerns that Trump's recent decision to withdraw troops from northeastern Syria, in the face of a Turkish attack against the U.S.' Kurdish allies, could infuse new strength into the militant group, which had lost vast stretches of territory it had once controlled.
Idlib province, where the raid was conducted, isn't in the region where U.S. forces were based or withdrew from after Trump's decision. Instead, it has been a refuge for jidahi forces, many with links to al-Qaida, that has held off efforts by Syrian President Bashar Assad's military to retake the region. It has increasingly become the focus of Syria's efforts, backed by Russia, to secure control over the country after years of civil war.
In the past five years, al-Baghdadi presided over the Islamic State's ascendancy as it cultivated a reputation for beheadings and attracted hundreds of thousands of followers to a sprawling and self-styled caliphate in Iraq and Syria. He has remained among the few commanders still at large despite multiple claims in recent years about his death.
If the raid was successful, al-Baghdadi would be the highest-ranking terrorist leader killed or captured since Osama bin Laden was killed in 2011.
Information for this article was contributed by Robert Burns, Eric Tucker and Deb Riechmann of The Associated Press and by Jennifer Jacobs and Tony Capaccio of Bloomberg News.
A Section on 10/27/2019