Islamic State ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, April 29, 2019. Photo: ISIS media
QAMISHLO, Syrian Kurdistan,— Syria’s top Kurdish commander on Sunday hailed a “historic operation” and joint intelligence work following US media reports that Islamic State jihadist supremo Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had been killed.
General Mazloum Abdi Kobani, head of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, the autonomous Kurdish administration’s de facto army, that was the US’s main local ally in years of battles against the Islamic State group in Syria, said the operation was the result of “joint intelligence work”.
ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is believed to have been killed in a raid conducted by the US military in northwest Syria on Saturday, according to a senior US defense official and a source with knowledge. The final confirmation is pending while DNA and biometric testing is conducted.
The helicopters targeted a home and a car outside the village of Barisha, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, in the operation which killed nine people.
US President Donald Trump is expected to make a “major statement” on Sunday at 9:00 am (1300 GMT), the White House said.
Some US media reports quoted government sources saying Baghdadi may have killed himself with a suicide vest as US special operations forces descended.
The Kurdish Democratic Union Party PYD and its powerful military wing YPG/YPJ, considered the most effective fighting force against IS in Syria and U.S. has provided them with arms. The YPG, which is the backbone of the Syrian Democratic Forces SDF forces, has seized swathes of Syria from Islamic State.
The Kurdish forces expelled the Islamic State from its last patch of territory in the eastern Syrian village of Baghouz in March 2019.
11,000 Kurdish male and female fighters had been killed in five years of war to eliminate the Islamic State “caliphate” that once covered an area the size of Great Britain in Syria and Iraq.
Syria’s Kurds have established a semi-autonomous region in northeastern Syria during the country’s eight-year war.
In 2013, the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party PYD — the political branch of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) — has established three autonomous Cantons of Jazeera, Kobani and Afrin and a Kurdish government across Syrian Kurdistan in 2013. On March 17, 2016, Kurdish and Arab authorities announced the creation of a “federal region” made up of those semi-autonomous regions in Syrian Kurdistan.
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