Witnesses describe night of Baghdadi's death
Residents of the village where Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was staying spoke to Al-Monitor about what happened on the night of his assassination.
IDLIB, Syria — As he was about to go to bed at 10:45 p.m. local time on Oct. 26, Abu Ahmed (a pseudonym) heard helicopters hovering in the sky.
The sound was confusing, but then grew clearer. “It was not a single helicopter, but several. The sky was dark, nothing was clear up there. The sound got closer and louder. It seemed that the helicopters were very near.”
Abu Ahmed’s heart pounded and he grew increasingly tense as he wondered who sent them. “Is it the Syrian regime, Russia or Turkey?” He never imagined that the eight helicopters were on a “dangerous” and “daring” US nighttime raid, as described by US President Donald Trump, to assassinate the leader of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
The following morning, Al-Monitor went to the scene: a small, remote village called Barisha, located 26 kilometers (16 miles) north of the city of Idlib and only 6.5 kilometers (four miles) from the Syrian-Turkish border.
