UPDATE WITH IRAQ PM'S REMARKS
By Ibrahim Saleh
BAGHDAD (AA) - Iraq’s intelligence had identified the “accurate” location of the head of terrorist group Daesh, also known as ISIS, the Iraqi Defense Ministry said on Sunday.
In a statement, the ministry said that after a year-long follow-up, the Iraqi National Intelligence Service (INIS) was able to identify the hideout of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in the province of Idlib, northwestern Syria.
It claimed that the U.S. forces in coordination with the Iraqi intelligence service carried out the operation that led to his killing.
Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi, for his part, described Baghdadi's killing as a "victory for the Iraqi intelligence".
"After Daesh's defeat by our armed forces, the INIS is completing this achievement with a qualitative intelligence victory that overthrew the terrorist leader of Daesh,'' Abdul-Mahdi said in a statement.
He added that INIS crews had been tracking Baghdadi since June of last year.
He went on to note that follow-up operations led to the capture of many close figures, who had "confessed about his whereabouts".
Earlier, U.S. President Donald Trump announced that al-Baghdadi, who led the Daesh terror organization as it swept up large swaths of Iraq and Syria, has been killed in a U.S. nighttime raid in northwestern Syria.
"Last night the United States brought the world's number one terrorist leader to justice. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is dead," Trump said from the White House in nationally-televised remarks.
"He was a sick and depraved man, and now he’s gone," he added.
The special operations mission included eight helicopters descending on the compound where he had been holed up amid gunfire that Trump said was "immediately terminated" by U.S. gunships.