The leader of ISIS blew himself up during a Special Ops mission to
capture him in Syria.
President Joe Biden announced the news about Haji Abdullah during
a recent press briefing.
Let's take a quick look at what he had to say.
>> The United States military forces successfully moved in major terrorist
threat to the world.
The global leader of ISIS, known as Haji Abdullah.
Haji Abdullah oversaw the spread of ISIS affiliated terrorist groups around
the world.
After savaging communities and murdering innocence.
He was responsible for
the recent brutal attack on a prison in Northeast Syria holding ISIS fighters.
Which was swiftly addressed by our brave partners In the Syrian Democratic forces.
He was the driving force behind the genocide of the people in
northwestern Iraq in 2014.
We all remember the gut wrenching stories,
mass slaughters that wiped out entire villages.
Thousands of women and young girls sold into slavery, rape used as a weapon award.
And thanks to the bravery of our troops.
This horrible terrorist leader is no more.
We do know that as our troops approach to capture the terrorists
in a final act of desperate cowardness.
He with no regard to the lives of his own family or others in the building,
he chose to blow himself up.
Not just to the vest but to blow up that third floor rather than face justice for
the crimes he has committed.
>> So since he decided to do a suicide bombing in close
quarters with other individuals, including his own family members.
There were civilian deaths as a result.
This Special Ops mission took about two hours.
And apparently there were plans in place where they were working on this
mission for several months now.
And several residents told the Associated Press that they saw body parts
scattered around a house in the village of Atmeh.
Near the border with Turkey.
They spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
Following the raid which they said involved helicopters, explosions and
machine gun fire.
Now no US troops were injured or killed during this mission.
And I should also note that while yes it's good news that the leader of
ISIS has been killed.
Fact of the matter is he's gonna be replaced.
There he is Haji Abdullah.
He will be replaced with another ISIS leader.
In fact this was the biggest US Military operation in Syria since
the October 2019 killing of then ISIS leader Abubakar al Baghdadi.
It had been planned for months since at least December.
When US Commanders became certain that they knew that he was staying at
this home in Atmeh.
And so it's overall good news.
But what I also found interesting was the decision to send
Special Ops to capture him rather than using a drone strike.
And there was a specific reason for that.
We'll get to those details in a moment.
But Jenk, what do you think?
>> I don't know what to believe because the US has such
little credibility after one of these raids.
So they say he blew himself up and that's why the civilians were killed.
Maybe.
I'm being just totally frank with you guys.
Maybe that's true, but there's also an excellent chance that it isn't true.
So after Bin laden was killed, I thought it was terrific.
And I'm glad that they use special forces,
not drones will get into that in a second again.
But when they said that he hid behind his wife, I was like, yeah,
that's the most obvious propaganda I've ever heard.
Good Bin laden is dead.
But you don't need to add the BS on top, right.
And of course, a couple of weeks later or a couple of months later, they're like,
okay, maybe he didn't hide behind his wife.
And maybe half the things we said, we're totally not true.
Yeah, that's what we thought.
You do needless propaganda.
So am I positive that it was this guy who detonated and killed the civilians?
Not at all positive.
Biden has been trying to avoid civilian deaths.
Which is a good thing, right?
But it would certainly be bad PR for
him if we're the ones who did the civilian deaths.
I'm just gonna give you two quotes here that make you realize why I'm
questioning it.
Local residents first responders and
generals who witnessed the US operation Thursday.
Said it included helicopters and f 16 warplanes.
Which bombed and shelled the area in Northwest Syria ahead of the airdrop raid.
We're really sure that that wasn't one of the bombs that landed.
And that it was the suicide bomb that he happened to conveniently have by him.
Maybe maybe not.
But get a load of this Anna told you about the body parts everywhere unfortunately.
But one more important quote.
Images also showed us made explosive devices scattered near the scene.
Including one from Colorado based Ensign Bickford Aerospace and Defense Company.
Is that the one the ISIS leader had?
>> Maybe.
>> I don't think so.
And if he did, well then that they should answer,
how in the world of the ISIS leader get a bomb from Colorado.
So there's some parts of this story that I'm not sure.
But I'm not saying that there lies, is 50, 50 at best.
So- >> I think I think
you make a really good point.
And I was watching the pentagon spokesperson and
his press conference just today.
And he seemed to get kind of irritable whenever a reporter
asked about civilian deaths.
And so it seemed like he didn't really wanna get into too many details about
what the Special Ops mission entailed.
What was their plan?
Why were they there for two hours?
Was that the original plan for them to be there for two hours.
There were many questions that weren't really answered in the context of that
press conference.
So I think that you're right to be skeptical.
I'm also skeptical about that.
Especially when you consider the fact that the Biden administration is trying really
hard to avoid any type of criticism in regard to civilian deaths.
And of course that follows the disastrous drone strike that the administration
had carried out in Kabul Afghanistan.
As they were trying to get US troops withdrawn from the country.
Yes, so look, we're gonna get into here.
Biden is doing less drone strikes and
I'm curious what you think Anna about the special forces.
But I prefer the special forces because there's gonna be less civilian deaths.
And yes, we take more of a danger regarding that.
But that's what we signed up for.
That's what cops signed up for
firefighters in the military signed up for.
In order so that those little kids don't die.
Now in this case they happen to die anyway,
either because of our negligence or because of the ISIS leader.
But I think it's good that they're making an extra effort.
But by the way, as you'll see in a second,
less drone strikes doesn't necessarily mean less killings.
>> Right, exactly.
So I actually want to get to the drone strike discussion by
starting with this statement from Biden during the same speech.
Let's watch.
>> Our forces carried out the operation with their signature preparation and
precision.
And I directed the Department of Defense to take every precaution possible
to minimize civilian casualties.
Knowing that this terrorist had chosen to surround himself with families,
including Children.
We made a choice to pursue a special forces raid at a much
greater risk than our to our own people.
Rather than targeting him with an air strike.
We made this choice to minimize civilian casualties.
>> So he says we made that choice to minimize civilian casualties.
How many civilian casualties were there in this operation?
Here's what we know so far the death toll could actually increase in coming days.
But as of now, here's what we know.
The Britain-based Syrian observatory for
human rights said the strike left at least 13 people dead.
Including four Children and three women.
The white helmets have reported higher numbers.
So once we get confirmation on the final death count,
we will of course let you guys know about it.
But I agree with you, Jenk in regard to going through a special mission like this.
You have far more at stake.
So you're far less likely to act based on faulty intelligence.
When it comes to a drone strike, the stakes are much lower for
the United States and the military.
And so oftentimes the drone strikes are used even when they're
not really sure whether the target is what they're striking.
That's what happened in Kabul for instance.
That drone strike was meant to target ISIS.
And instead they targeted an innocent civilian and
killed several members of his family.
So the Biden administration is trying to avoid the criticism that they received as
a result of that drone strike in Kabul.
And to be sure in the beginning of the Biden administration,
there was a significant reduction in drone strikes.
And I wanna give you those numbers.
This is reporting from Jeremy Scahill over at the intercept.
He writes, Biden did not authorize a single known strike for
the first six months of his presidency.
On the day of Biden's inauguration,
his national security advisor, Jake Sullivan quietly issued an order
to roll back Trump's loosening of rules surrounding drone strikes.
Specifically one that bestowed on military commanders.
The power to authorize such strikes in undeclared war zones with a disaster.
Like Somalia and Yemen without direct permission from the White House.
But there's a big but.
Biden broke his streak here, right?
So Biden broke his no drone streak with a series of drone attacks
against Al Shabaab in Somalia in July of 2021.
Despite the notable reduction,
at least two of the strikes conducted under Biden have killed civilians.
Including the now infamous August 29 attack in Kabul Afghanistan
that killed 10 civilians, seven of them Children.
>> So look, everything requires nuance.
And so sometimes one of these tactics is better than others.
Sometimes killing a leader makes a difference a lot of times, it doesn't.
So let's then look at this in the context of all of that.
First of all, in this case, when we deal with ISIS in the past,
I have said that killing their leader back in the day would make a big difference.
And I think that I was proven right by that.
The original leader was Abubakar Al Baghdadi.
And unfortunately he was brilliant as a tactician.
And that's how they took half of Iraq and Syria seemingly overnight.
And I thought this is a rare situation.
Where if you took out a leader, yes he would be replaced by another leader.
But they wouldn't be nearly as good.
And when Al Baghdadi was taken out, you never really know, right?
And so the US says a lot of things and half of it isn't true.
But it looks like they actually did get Al Baghdadi.
And then ISIS massively declined afterwards, right?
And it was clear it was a ragtag group led by a guy who was
unfortunately really smart, right?
Other than the fact that he was a monster morally, right?
And so this guy took his place and didn't do that great a job.
He will be replaced by another slept.
So this one probably doesn't make as much of a difference.
And again I don't know how much of it is US propaganda.
If he really was the leader that killed all the Yazidi,
then I shed no tear whatsoever, right.
I'm shedding a tear under any circumstance for this guy.
But we don't know like if he truly was that particular monster.
If he was great, right?
But is that why ISIS came about in the first place?
No, ISIS came about in the first place,
not because there's just random evil monstrous guys wandering around.
And the US is a good cowboy that comes around.
And I guess no, we started the Iraq war and
they made the Sunnis furious because they lost power in Iraq.
It was bound to lead to fundamentalism.
Which was bound to lead to terrorism.
And that's we predicted on a we've been on there for 20 years.
We said that was gonna happen during the beginning of the Iraq war.
We were right.
And then afterwards everybody pretended as if like, God damn it,
they hate us because they hate us.
These terrorists came out of nowhere.
So we keep doing all these bombings in Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria.
And we think that there's gonna be no consequence.
But this is the consequence.
ISIS is the consequence.
>> Right, exactly.
And so what we end up doing is dealing with the symptoms of our failed
foreign policy.
Rather than giving our foreign policy a good hard critical look and
changing course.
But with defense contractors in the pockets of all of these
members of Congress.
And with corporate rule dominating the United States.
There's a very clear reason why we don't take a good hard look at our
foreign policy and change course.
>> And last reason to support the special forces as opposed.
I'm not saying they should do special forces all the time.
I'm not saying it's good to have folks stationed abroad and
it creates other issues and other problems.
And by the way, Biden has cut down the drone strikes, but
he's increased the number of strikes from jets, ships, etc.
So at the end of the day, he's killing more people than Obama did and
less than Trump did.
So it's a very mixed bag.
But one of the other reasons why I prefer special forces to the other options is
because you make sure you got the right guy.
>> Exactly.
>> And so that was very critical in the Bin Laden raid obviously.
I didn't like that they threw his body into the water.
Trust us that we got him.
Well, we don't have a great track record than being honest Pentagon.
You'll excuse me because I'm an actual I hesitated calling myself a journalist
because I'm mainly a talk show host.
But since there are almost no real journalists in the country who would
question the pentagon.
They just accept whatever the pentagon says as if it's true.
So no, I don't accept what the pentagon says.
And so I wish that they had actually brought Bin Laden and
showing the pictures.
I don't care how mangled his body was.
And then you bury him.
Although we're worried that they'll do terrorism around his grave site.
We're Americans.
We shouldn't be worried and scared of terrorists.
So scared we throw them overboard.
But the bottom line is yes, if you can verify that you've got the right guy.
That is clearly better than a drone strike.
It was his phone.
We think ,we hope we got the right guy.
There goes six kids and four women, but we'll hope for the best.
That's the worst case scenario.