President Trump says ISIS leader al-Baghdadi is dead after US military raid in Syria
Good Morning America•President Trump says ISIS leader al-Baghdadi is dead after US military raid in Syria originally appeared on abcnews.go.com President Donald Trump announced the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State.”A brutal killer, one who has caused so much hardship and death, has violently been eliminated,” Trump said in an address to the nation from the White House. „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 White House Situation Room as it happened.(MORE: Defense secretary offers more details on military raid in Syria, al-Baghdadi’s death)
PHOTO: President Donald Trump and government officials monitor developments as special operations forces close in on ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s compound in Syria in the situation room at the White House, Oct. 26, 2019. (Shealah Craighead/The White House via Getty Images)”Al-Baghdadi was vicious and violent and he died in a vicious and violent way. As a coward running and crying,” Trump said. „This raid was impeccable and could only have taken place with the acknowledgment and help of certain other nations and people. I want to thank the nations of Russia, Turkey, Syria, and Iraq and I also want to thank the Syrian Kurds for certain support they were able to give us.”
ABC News@ABCBREAKING: Pres. Trump details death of ISIS leader al-Baghdadi: „The thug who tried so hard to intimidate others spent his last moments in utter fear, in total panic and dread, terrified of the American forces bearing down on him.” https://abcn.ws/2PoXSTK Defense Secretary Mark Esper appeared on ABC’s „This Week” following the president’s remarks and described more details of the military operation, saying the stars aligned a few of weeks ago. He said troops rehearsed the mission and then on Thursday and Friday chose the option they would proceed with on Saturday.
This Week@ThisWeekABCNEW: Defense Sec. Mark Esper says fewer than 100 forces were on the ground during raid, „but these are always much bigger operations, the tail of which stretches back pretty deep.” https://abcn.ws/2PoXSTK
‘He died like a dog’: Trump announces killing of ISIS leader al-Baghdadi in Syria
WASHINGTON — President Trump announced the killing of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of the Islamic State group, or ISIS, in a televised address on Sunday morning.
“Last night the United States brought the world’s No. 1 terrorist leader to justice. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is dead.”
According to Trump, al-Baghdadi and a “large number” of his fighters were killed on Saturday night in Idlib Province, Syria, after a raid by U.S. Special Operations forces. Trump offered a dramatic narration of the raid, which he said he was able to watch and took “approximately two hours.” He gave a graphic account of the terrorist being chased down a tunnel by American troops “whimpering and crying and screaming all the way.”
“He reached the end of the tunnel as our dogs chased him down,” Trump said of Baghdadi. “He ignited the vest, killing himself and three of his children. “He died like a dog.”
Al-Baghdadi’s body was badly mutilated but was positively identified on the spot by a DNA match, Trump said. “We had his DNA.”
Trump said the U.S. had been pursuing al-Baghdadi for years and described “capturing or killing” the leader as “the top national security priority of my administration.” He said the intelligence that led to finding al-Baghdadi came together in recent months, and the operation had been planned for about two weeks.
The president mocked al-Baghdadi’s ISIS fighters as “losers” and said al-Baghdadi died in a state of “utter fear, total panic and dread.” He didn’t indicate how he knew what al-Baghdadi was thinking.
“He died like a dog. He died like a coward. The world is now a much safer place. God bless America,” Trump said.
Trump warned other terrorist leaders could face a similar fate but stressed the unique importance of killing al-Baghdadi.
“We’re after these leaders, and we have others in sight, very bad ones, but this was the big one. This was the biggest one perhaps that we’ve ever captured,” Trump said.
As he stressed the importance of taking down al-Baghdadi, Trump suggested the ISIS leader’s death was even more significant than the 2011 U.S. operation that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, who was the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
“This is the biggest there is. This is the worst ever. Osama bin Laden was very big, but Osama bin Laden became big with the World Trade Center,” Trump said. “This is a man who built a whole, as he would like to call it, a country … and was trying to do it again.”

Giuliani butt-dials reporter, says he needs “a few hundred thousand” By New York PostPublished: Oct 26, 2019 12:33 p.m. ETSerial butt dialer: Giuliani really needs to learn how to lock his phone properlyGetty President Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, has been caught on tape talking about an apparent business arrangement with a super-wealthy Persian Gulf nation when he accidentally dialed an NBC News reporter in the middle of the night.The former New York mayor at one point declared that “the problem is we need some money.” After nine seconds of silence, Giuliani specified: “We need a few hundred thousand.”
“Let’s get back to business,” Giuliani was recorded telling an unidentified third person in the voicemail message recorded at 11:07 p.m on Oct. 16. “I gotta get you to get on Bahrain.”
The reporter, NBC News’ Rich Schapiro, was asleep and discovered the message after the fact.
Giuliani runs a security consulting firm and has deep business ties to the Arab nation, and has even had a sit-down with Bahrain’s ruler, King Hamad Bin Isa al-Khalifa.
However, it’s unclear what business Giuliani was referring to or if he was discussing in the country in his capacity as a security consultant, Trump’s personal attorney or as Trump’s informal foreign policy adviser.
It was the second time in three weeks that the former New York City mayor butt dialed Schapiro.
The first call came Sept. 28 at 3:37 p.m. during the birthday party for Schapiro’s 3-year-old daughter in central New Jersey. Schapiro let it go to voicemail.
Giuliani did not respond to requests for comment from NBC on Thursday before the story was published.
Serial Butt Dialer
It wasn’t the first time it happened. In September, Giuliani left a voice message where he can be heard blasting former Vice President Joe Biden’s family. That message didn’t come late at night but rather “when the NBC News reporter was at a fifth-birthday party for an extended family member in Central Jersey.” The three-minute voice message is almost entirely of the lawyer “railing against the Bidens, recycling many of the unfounded allegations he has been making on cable news and in interviews with print reporters.”
Giuliani also said that “there’s plenty more to come out” about Biden’s business dealings, specifically mentioning China, Kazakhstan, and Russia. “It’s a sad situation,” he said. “You know how they get? Biden has been trading in on his public office since he was a senator.” The president’s lawyer also specifically railed against Hunter Biden. “When he became vice president, the kid decided to go around the world and say, ‘Hire me because I’m Joe Biden’s son.’ And most people wouldn’t hire him because he had a drug problem,” he said.
It seems Giuliani really needs to learn how to lock his phone properly. After Schapiro published his story, lots of reporters came out to tell their own Giuliani butt-dial tales, Slate reported. “Everyone has a good Rudy butt dial story,” the Washington Post’s Josh Dawsey tweeted. “I’ve heard him on what sounded like a plane, at the airport, at what sounded like a bar.” Jonathan Swan of Axios tweeted that Giuliani once “texted me a voice memo recording of himself talking to a guy.”
Giuliani appears to know this is a problem—at least sometimes. The Daily Mail’s David Martosko tweeted that he once overheard Giuliani telling a Fox News producer: “And I butt-dialed him! Can you believe it?”
And there are even hints this may be sort of a trend for lawyers in Trump’s orbit. In March, Politico’s Darren Samuelsohn wrote that “both Rudy and Lanny Davis, Trump’s former lawyer’s lawyer, butt dialed me.”