One of Baghdadi’s wives gave key info to CIA
WASHINGTON: The CIA got the tip-off about the possible location of the elusive ISIS chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi some months ago when one of his wives and a courier were arrested and interrogated, according to the New
York Times.
Armed with that initial tip, the Central Intelligence Agency worked closely with Iraqi and Kurdish intelligence officials in Iraq and Syria to identify more precisely Baghdadi’s whereabouts and to put spies in place to monitor his periodic movements, the report said.
US President Donald Trump on Sunday announced that Baghdadi, the world’s most wanted terrorist “is dead” in a raid on Saturday at his hideout by the US Special Forces in northwest Syria.
American officials told the newspaper that the Kurds continued to provide information to the CIA on Baghdadi’s location even after President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the American troops left the Syrian Kurds to confront a Turkish offensive alone.
According to a Syrian engineer who spoke with villagers living near the raid site, Baghdadi had sought shelter in the home of Abu Mohammed Salama, a commander of another extremist group, Hurras al-Din.
The commander’s fate in that raid, and the precise nature of his relationship to Baghdadi, are not clear, the report said. As the US Army’s elite
Delta Force commando unit began drawing up and rehearsing plans to conduct the mission to kill or capture the ISIS leader, they knew they faced formidable hurdles. The location was deep inside territory controlled by Al Qaeda. The skies over that part of the country were controlled by Syria and Russia. The military called off missions at least twice at the last minute, the report said. The final planning for the raid came together over two to three days last week. A senior administration official said that Baghdadi was “about to move.” Military officials determined that they had to go swiftly. If Baghdadi moved again, it would be much harder to track him with the American military pulling out its troops and surveillance assets on the ground in Syria, it said.
During Sunday’s press conference at the White House, Trump said that -Baghdadi, when cornered in a tunnel by American forces, detonated a suicide vest and that “his body was mutilated by the blast.” He also said “test results gave certain immediate and totally positive identification. It was him (Baghdadi).” Trump added that American forces remained in the compound occupied by Baghdadi for about two hours.
The latest DNA-testing machines can provide a positive identification in about 90 minutes, according to David H Kaye, a Penn State Law School professor who specialises in the field.