Each US president should have his own bin Laden.
So Donald Trump decided, giving the order to liquidate Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the “destroyed” “Islamic State” *.
On the evening of October 26 (East Coast time), Trump wrote on his Twitter: “Something very significant has just happened!”
This, of course, could mean anything - from a heart attack by Trump’s main enemy in Congress, Chuck Schumer, to slaughter compromising evidence on Joe Biden from the new president of Ukraine Zelensky, but the people reading the president’s Twitter somehow immediately realized that it was about the elimination of al-Baghdadi. This was also confirmed by the compelledly streamlined (before the president’s official statement) comments of the American military: they say that we can’t say anything definite, but, yes, we destroyed al-Baghdadi, and we did it on our own and without any help.
This “without anyone’s help” deeply angered US allies in the region before Donald Trump appeared before reporters. And the Turks, and Iraqis, and Jordanians, and even more so the Kurds and the Syrian opposition - all wanted to get their share of fame. As you know, victory has many fathers, this defeat is always an orphan. The Turks insisted that they provided an air corridor to U.S. special forces helicopters, the Jordanians reminded that the air force base with which the American F-15Es, which bombed al-Baghdadi’s house after its liquidation, were located on their territory, Iraq emphasized that it was his intelligence that supplied the CIA with intelligence information about the whereabouts of Abu Bakr, and the Kurds, offended by Washington for having thrown them to Erdogan, proudly stated that without them the Americans would not have succeeded at all. The debate about who helped to kill al-Baghdadi more did not subside until Sunday morning, when Donald Trump addressed the nation with a pathetic speech about the great victory that he and his administration won over the IS leader.
“Last night, the United States brought the number one terrorist to justice,” Trump said in his address to the nation. - Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is dead. He was the head of ISIS, the most brutal and dangerous terrorist organization in the world. For many years, the capture (or liquidation) of al-Baghdadi has been a priority of my administration in the field of national security. "The extremely difficult and dangerous night raid in northwestern Syria was carried out by American special forces ... incredible people!"
The world media eagerly quoted the American president, telling in colors about the last minutes of al-Baghdadi’s life: “He died like a dog, he died like a coward,” Trump said. “He howled, screamed and cried all the time.”
The operation, codenamed “Kayla Muller” - in honor of an American woman volunteer who was captured by the Ishilovites back in 2013 and became one of the “wives” of al-Baghdadi, and then killed by his bodyguards - began on Saturday, October 26, at midnight local time. Eight Apache and CH-47 Chinook helicopters took off from the US military base in Iraqi Erbil. On board these helicopters were soldiers of the Delta division and at least one service dog - a Belgian shepherd of Malinois breed. They headed to the village of Barisha in northwestern Syria, near which was the house where al-Baghdadi was hiding.
Hollywood films and TV shows love to show high technology with which US intelligence calculates the location of the “bad guys” before inflicting a punitive blow.
But, as Time writes, “despite all the attention that the U.S. intelligence community pays to spy satellites, communications interception technologies, and artificial intelligence, despite all the inventions and investments, the raid that ended the IG leader ... began with the use of the same old-fashioned tool that led to Osama bin Laden - the human mind. After many years of futile attempts to get al-Baghdadi’s location data in real time, the information was not obtained from space or from a strategically located wiretapping point, but from the wife of al-Baghdadi’s assistant and one of his couriers with whom he worked to avoid using mobile phones and computers. ”
According to the publication, having received several key names and points on the map from the wife of the assistant and courier al-Baghdadi, CIA officers, as well as Iraqi intelligence officers and Kurdish self-defense forces began to recruit agents along the routes that al-Baghdadi used to travel along the Syrian-Iraqi borders. So they finally went to his shelter near Barishi.
On Monday, Reuters presented another version of the events, according to which the whereabouts of al-Baghdadi was first established by Iraqi intelligence, back in February 2018, received a gift from Turkish colleagues - one of al-Baghdadi's assistants, Ismael al-Etawi. Al-Etawi, according to the British News Agency, provided Iraqi intelligence with invaluable information about the shelters used by Abu Bakr. True, Reuters admits, it was only possible to finally establish where the leader of the IS was hiding after the Syrian informants of the Iraqi secret services spotted al-Etawi in one of the Idlib markets. Apparently (although this is not explained), al-Etawi was released after interrogations in Iraq, hoping that sooner or later he would lead to his commander.
One way or another, both Time and Reuters agree that al-Baghdadi was discovered not by high technology, but by the good old work with agents - the pillar and foundation of any intelligence agency. But it was not without high technologies: while the Delta commandos flew from Erbil to Abu Bakr’s shelter, al-Baghdadi’s house was closely monitored by satellites and drones.
Then everything was like in a movie - reaching their goal, Apache helicopters and combat drones fired at a village near Barishi, while a special forces detachment landed from CH-47 Chinook transport helicopters and surrounded “a complex of buildings in which al-Baghdadi was hiding with bodyguards and relatives. "
The Igilovites were asked to surrender, they refused, after which the special forces blew up the walls of the complex and entered inside. Al-Baghdadi tried to escape through an underground tunnel with his three children, but it turned out that the Americans blocked the exit from the tunnel. The commandos did not climb into the tunnel behind al-Baghdadi, but sent a dog. When, literally, a cornered leader of the IG activated a shahid’s belt, blowing himself up and his children in a dark tunnel, a brave Belgian shepherd was seriously injured.
She was the only one injured by the “forces of good” - two more special forces received light scratches that did not even require hospitalization. But the dog is really sorry.
Despite some minor differences, Operation Kayla Muller is strikingly reminiscent of Operation Lance of Neptune, during which the then "terrorist number one" Osama bin Laden was destroyed. Let me remind you that on May 2, 2011, a detachment of "fur seals" thrown from Afghanistan stormed bin Laden's house near the Pakistan Military Academy in Abbottabad. Bin Laden himself was shot dead in his bedroom, after (according to the "seals") tried to hide behind the backs of his wives. His body was taken out of Pakistan and buried at sea to avoid the transformation of bin Laden's burial site into a “terror shrine.”
For the same purpose - to prevent the Ishilians from turning the house of Abu Bakr into an object of worship - the Americans wiped out the entire complex of buildings near Barishi an hour after the elimination of al-Baghdadi.
But even more curious are some chronological parallels. When Barack Obama watched bin Laden’s liquidation from the White House’s “situation room” online, there was a year and a half left until the 2012 presidential election. At the same time, in April, Obama’s rating fell to the lowest possible level, and after Operation Lance of Neptune jumped sharply by 9%.
Trump has a year left until the 2020 election. His rating is not too high (39% in the first decade of October), which is 7% lower than in April. Despite the successes of the American economy, the ongoing struggle against Trump Democrats and liberal media, insisting on impeachment because of a call to Trump Zelensky (the identity of the “whistleblower” who reported the conversation between the two presidents, is still a secret), affects.
To make matters worse, at least part of the US military elite began to turn away from Trump. The 45th owner of the White House was always proud that the army supported him. He not only did not skimp on loud words addressed to "the greatest soldiers in the world", but also provided real financial support to veteran organizations that have great weight in the military community of America. But on October 17, in the mouthpiece of Trump's enemies, The New York Times, a column appeared by the US Navy admiral, retired William McCraven, "Our Republic is under the blow of the president!" In this column, Macraven explicitly states that Trump is America’s internal enemy who threatens to destroy the republic. (At the same time, the admiral emphasizes that he expresses not only his personal opinion, but also the opinion of many other high-ranking military men: “When I attended the parade at Fort Bragg, a retired four-star general grabbed my hand, shook it and shouted:“ I don’t like democrats, but trump destroys the republic! ”)
It would seem, so what? Some retired admiral writes about some retired general ... But the fact is that Macraven is not just an admiral - he is a living legend of the American army. It was he who developed (as the chief of staff of the 121st operational group of the US special forces) a plan to capture Saddam Hussein in 2003 in Iraqi Tikrit. And - what is, perhaps, most important - it was he who in 2011 directly supervised the operation "Spear of Neptune" (as the commander of the Pentagon Joint Special Purpose Team).
As The New York Times wrote, “the day before the operation, Barack Obama left the rehearsal for a correspondent dinner at the White House in the evening and called Admiral Macraven to wish him good luck.”
Of course, Admiral Macraven is a faithful Obama. And there are still a lot of such Obamovites in the Pentagon, in the special services, and in other units of the “Deep State”. The message is intended for them, which is not too complicatedly encrypted in Trump's pathos speech about the killing of al-Baghdadi.
It is unlikely that the Macraven column played a decisive role in the elimination of al-Baghdadi, but one cannot help but admit that the leader of the Islamic State was killed in a timely manner: now Trump’s rating will grow and the vacillating part of the army elite will see that Trump is “no worse than Obama”. And that the president’s often repeated threats to deal with America’s enemies are not empty words. At least not always.
However, there is a weak spot in this strategy.
The Internet, as you know, remembers everything. And before Trump announced the liquidation of al-Baghdadi, he was reminded of one of his old tweets from October 22, 2012. A month before the election, in which Obama was re-elected for a second term, Trump wrote:
“Stop congratulating Obama on the elimination of bin Laden. Bin Laden killed the "fur seals"! "
Now Trump's enemies can rightfully say: what does the president have to do with it? Al-Baghdadi eliminated the commandos of the Delta team!
And the fact that the opponents of the president will not let him rest peacefully on their laurels is clear right now. Trump did not have time to thank Russia for allowing American aviation to fly through its controlled areas when the indefatigable Nancy Pelosi volunteered to Trump: “The House of Representatives, not the Russians, should have been informed about the raid! "The Russians were informed of the raid before it was held, but the leaders of the Congress were not!"
And although Igor Konashenkov, an official representative of the Russian Ministry of Defense, said that his department “is not aware of any alleged assistance in the flight of American aviation into the airspace of the Idlib de-escalation zone during this operation,” this is unlikely to reassure Ms. Pelosi.
And is al-Baghdadi really dead?
He was killed at least five times, and even if he was really finished on the night of Saturday to Sunday, this was done - as is the case with bin Laden - suspiciously hastily. References to “express DNA analysis” are convincing only to the extent that people, in principle, are ready to believe the word to state representatives. And so - there is no body, no business. And the house where Abu Bakr was hiding was wiped off the face of the earth by American aircraft.
The leader of the IS was a bloody fanatic, and his destruction could only be welcomed. If it did not raise so many questions ...
* “Islamic State” (IG) - the organization was recognized as terrorist by decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of December 29, 2014.
The author’s point of view may not coincide with the position of the publisher.