U.S. President Donald Trump:
U.S. Special Forces conducted a raid resulting in the death of ISIS Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Other ISIS members were also killed. Baghdadi detonated a vest after running to the end of a tunnel. We obtained a significant amount of intel.
U.S. President Donald Trump:
We care committed to destroying terrorist organizations. This comes after we killed bin Laden's son last month.
Terrorists should never sleep soundly.
We obliterated the ISIS caliphate in March. We will continue pursuing other terror orgs.
U.S. President Donald Trump:
Baghdadi died as a coward. This raid was impeccable. I want to thank Russia, Turkey, Syria, Iraq & the Syrian Kurds.
Intel professionals, soldiers, sailors, airmen & marines made this possible. U.S. agencies were critical to this mission.
U.S. President Donald Trump:
Baghdadi died like a dog & a coward.
We've had him under surveillance for a couple of weeks. Had good info about his intentions to go to another location.
We landed with 8 helicopters. Large crew involved.
We watched in the Situation Room.
U.S. President Donald Trump:
70 minute low/fast flight was very dangerous. There was a chance we would have met unbelievable fire. Cooperation from Russia was great & Iraq was excellent. They didn't know our intentions. Kurds gave us helpful info. Turkey was informed.
U.S. President Donald Trump:
I've been looking for al-Baghdadi for three years. We received great info around a month ago. This operation started two weeks ago. Many ISIS members were killed. We lost nobody & only a K-9 was hurt. We only told Russia you'll be happy.
U.S. President Donald Trump:
Massive air power at high altitude was ready to provide support.
Pullout of U.S. troops from Syria had nothing to do with this. We have other terrorist leaders insight. al-Baghdadi sought to rebuild ISIS from northwest Syria.
U.S. President Donald Trump:
We have troops in Syria to protect the oil. Syria & Turkey have to make their own decisions. Russia & China loves it for being in Syria, saving their money.
Europe has been a tremendous disappointment, not taking their ISIS fighters.
U.S. President Donald Trump:
Some of al-Baghdadi's people gave up. We have some ISIS fighters in prison after this raid. We have al-Baghdadi's DNA & conducted on sight test after a tunnel collapsed.
We gathered around 5 pm EST on Saturday. Lift off began in minutes.
U.S. President Donald Trump:
We know al-Baghdadi's successors & we have them in our sight. We have detained some people & 11 children. More dead than alive.
Many special ops teams at the top level were involved.
Only U.S. forces involved with great cooperation.
U.S. President Donald Trump:
Speaker Nancy Pelosi was not previously informed.
The Syria pullout did not generate intelligence to this operation.
We had minute-by-minute reports. We were moving too fast to deploy our robot.
I will make call to families of ISIS victims.