{"id":196994,"date":"2019-10-27T17:31:19","date_gmt":"2019-10-27T17:31:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=196994"},"modified":"2019-10-31T07:07:53","modified_gmt":"2019-10-31T07:07:53","slug":"have-u-s-forces-really-killed-al-baghdadi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=196994","title":{"rendered":"Have U.S. Forces Really Killed al-Baghdadi?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction \u2013 Oct 27, 2019<\/h1>\n
\"\"<\/a>

Al Baghdadi. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

Russia\u2019s Defense Ministry has called into question President Trump\u2019s claim that U.S. forces killed Islamic State (Isis, ISIL or Daesh), claiming that \u201cthere were legitimate questions and doubts about the very fact [of the US operation] and, especially, its success.\u201d<\/em><\/h5>\n
The Russians have good reason to question the U.S. claims because in June 2017 they also claimed<\/span><\/a> to have killed al Baghdadi in an airstrike.<\/h5>\n
Nor was this the only time that al-Baghdadi was reportedly killed. In July 2017, the western backed monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported al Baghdadi\u2019s death<\/a><\/span>.<\/h5>\n
While sources in ISIS itself reportedly confirmed<\/a><\/span> that the terror group\u2019s leader had been killed in a Russian air strike. So did U.S. forces really kill al-Baghdadi, as Trump claims? Or is the U.S. president taking credit for something the Russians did in order to boost his chances for re-election?<\/h5>\n

Russian MoD doubts Trump\u2019s announcement of killing ISIS chief al-Baghdadi, rejects claims it assisted US forces in op<\/h1>\n

RT \u2013 Oct 27, 2019<\/h2>\n

There\u2019s no credible data to prove a successful American raid took place against Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Russia\u2019s Defense Ministry said. The US coalition didn\u2019t even carry out any airstrikes in Idlib recently.<\/span><\/p>\n

Earlier, Trump made a rare Sunday address from the White House informing the world that al-Baghdadi was eliminated in northwest Syria in a \u201cdaring nighttime raid\u201d<\/em> with the involvement of US special forces, planes, helicopters and drones. The Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) leader met his end \u201ccrying and screaming\u201d<\/em> in the face of the Americans\u2019 might, he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

But the Russian Defense Ministry insisted that \u201cthere were legitimate questions and doubts about the very fact [of the US operation] and, especially, its success.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Moscow pointed out that it recorded no US coalition airstrikes in the Idlib area in northwest Syria on Saturday when the raid was held.<\/span><\/p>\n

It also rejected Trump\u2019s claims that Russian forces opened up the airspace under its control in Syria to American planes to facilitate the operation against the IS leader.<\/span><\/p>\n

The ministry questioned the very possibility of al-Baghdadi\u2019s presence in Idlib as the area is held by Al-Qaeda offshoot, Jabhat al-Nusra, who have always been mortal enemies of Islamic State.<\/span><\/p>\n

Moscow noted that Islamic State was crushed in Syria in early 2018 in a joint effort by the government in Damascus and the Russian forces, meaning that yet another report of al-Baghdadi\u2019s demise\u00a0\u201cbears no effect on the operational situation in Syria or on the actions of the remaining terrorists in Idlib.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

French Defense Minister Florence Parly also questioned the significance of the claimed US achievement, pointing out that the raid only marked \u201can early retirement for a terrorist [al-Baghdadi], but not for his organization.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Or is Trump simply claiming credit for something the Russians did in 2017?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,83],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-196994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary","category-syria"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=196994"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196994\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":196998,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196994\/revisions\/196998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=196994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=196994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=196994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}