The President of the United States, Donald Trump has disclosed on Tuesday that the person who would have likely replaced Islamic State’s slain leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was also “terminated.”
According to Trump in a tweet, “Just confirmed that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s number one replacement has been terminated by American troops. Most likely would have taken the top spot – Now he is also Dead!”.
He did not specifically mention the person’s name or even give more detail on how he was terminated.
But an information made public by a top Kurdish official revealed that Baghdadi’s spokesman and very close person, Abu Hassan al-Muhajir, was killed Sunday in a separate raid in the village of Ain Al-Baydah.
However, It was not certain if the person Trump was referring to in his tweet, fits into the above description.
The commander of the Kurdish-led SDF, Mazloum Abdi, had said on Twitter that al-Muhajir was targeted in what he described as a “coordinated operation between SDF intelligence and the US army.”
That raid according to him was carried out a day after US military forces stormed Baghdadi’s hideout in northwestern Syria, during when the ISIS founder as narrated by Trump detonated a suicide vest, killing himself and three children, as he was being chased into a dead-end tunnel.
An official of the Kurdish State on Monday also said the SDF provided crucial intelligence from a source who infiltrated Baghdadi’s house, bringing out underwear that provided positive DNA identification.