The location raided by special operations was discovered when he tried to get his family out of Idlib towards the Turkish border, this location had been under surveillance for some time....
President Trump approved the mission nearly a week before it took place...under heavy political pressure......And TURKEY WAS ‘NOT’ NOTIFIED PRIOR TO THE OPERATION.
The compound located was then taken out with a heavy air-strike in order to prevent the site from becoming a shrine to the leader.
Apparently Bagdadi had used communications a several weeks ago to order his troops to free the woman and children out of the camps/prisons.....British Special Forces Support Group and the British Special Boat Service, performed a 'covert hunt' to trace the communication using voice recognition software...to locate the compound.
I understand The Kurds were coordinating with out troops and Iraq also had intelligence. Russia also was involved..so this was on ongoing and a collective operation until the “Go signal.
It all worked and all the choppers encountered was small arms fire.