The operation that took out ISIS leader al-Baghdadi

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the notorious Islamic State (also known as IS, ISIS, ISIL), was killed in Syria’s Idlib province on October 27, 2019, in a military raid carried out by the United States 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta (1st SFOD-D), also known as Delta Force. The Delta Force is considered as Tier 1 unit.

The operation was carried out after the CIA agents have acknowledged the al-Baghdadi’s possible whereabout. In coordination with Joint Special Operations Command, commonly known as JSOC, they have coordinated the raid which resulted in the death of al-Baghdadi. In addition to Delta Force, participating units under JSOC included the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne)—also known as “Night Stalkers”—and operators from the CIA’s Special Activities Division, which recruits heavily from former JSOC Special Mission Units. The operation ended a nearly 5-year search for al-Baghdadi since he announced the Islamic State califate in Mosul’s great mosque in April 2014.

U.S. military helicopters with operators onboard have flown to Syria’s northwestern Idlib province, where the CIA agents have located al-Baghdadi. The al-Baghdadi was the target of the top-secret operation in the last bastion of the country’s Islamist-dominated opposition, a faction that has clashed with ISIS in recent years.

In a brief firefight that followed the raid, shortly after the Delta Force operators entered the compound in Idlib’s Barisha village, notorious ISIS leader al-Baghdadi detonated his suicide vest killing himself on the scene. Family members were present. No children were harmed in the special operations raid but two Baghdadi wives were killed after detonating their own explosive vests.

The compound in which al-Baghdadi was located was then wiped out with an airstrike shortly after the Delta Force operators withdrawn from the scene. That was carried out in order to prevent the site from becoming a shrine to the notorious ISIS leader.