Free Republic

What’s the best place to look for the terrorist leader of a defeated Islamic terrorist group? When his men are on the run, look for his hideout in or near the country that sponsors him. We didn’t find Osama bin Laden hiding in a cave in Afghanistan, but in a compound in a Pakistani military city. And Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the former Caliph of ISIS, wasn’t hanging out in his home turf, but in an area controlled by Turkey and its allied Islamist militias right off the Turkish border. Osama bin Laden’s death confirmed the reports of his ties to...

WASHINGTON (ChurchMilitant.com) - President Trump is honoring a Christian martyr by naming the mission to kill a top ISIS leader and her captor after her. In an address at the White House on Sunday, Trump announced that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed in a special forces raid in Syria while he and his security team watched. Also on Sunday, National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien told NBC's "Meet the Press" that the mission was named in honor of Kayla Mueller, captured in Syria in 2013 while working with humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders. Mueller spent 18 months in...

ISIS on Thursday confirmed the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and named Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi al-Qurayshi as its new leader, according to the BBC. The terror group also confirmed spokesman Abu al-Hasan al-Muhajir, who had been considered a potential heir to al-Baghdadi, had been killed in a separate joint operation between U.S. and Kurdish forces on Oct. 27. President Trump announced al-Baghdadi’s death Sunday morning, saying the ISIS leader was killed in a raid on his compound in Idlib province in northern Syria after fleeing into a tunnel and detonating a suicide vest. U.S. forces have said al-Baghdadi killed two...

Anti-Trump leftists reacted negatively on Twitter Wednesday to President Trump’s tweet of a photoshopped image honoring the hero dog that chased Islamic State (ISIS) founder and leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, into a tunnel. Trump tweeted an obviously photoshopped image depicting him honoring the dog, whose photo was released on Tuesday.“AMERICAN HERO!” Trump wrote alongside the photoshopped image:However, Trump’s decision to tweet the image, reportedly created by Daily Wire, prompted some to fact-check the obviously doctored image.“I’ve requested details from the @WhiteHouse on this photo. There was no such canine event on today’s @POTUS schedule but there is a Medal of Honor ceremony...

President Trump on Wednesday tweeted an edited image of himself awarding a Medal of Honor to the dog injured in the U.S. military operation in Syria that led to the death of ISIS leader Abu Baker al-Baghdadi over the weekend. The photo, which has a watermark with the Twitter handle of The Daily Wire, shows the dog edited into a 2017 photo of Trump who, in the original, was awarding the Medal of Honor to James McCloughan, a retired Army captain who saved dozens of lives during the Vietnam War. The image is one of several that The Daily Wire...

The weekend raid that resulted in the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was named after Kayla Mueller, an American aid worker killed in Syria in 2015 while being held captive by the sadistic ISIS leader. During his Sunday morning announcement from the White House, President Trump twice invoked Mueller’s name in addition to the names of other Americans murdered under the Islamic State’s ongoing reign of terror. (snip) But in 2016, rather than successfully hunting down terrorists including Mueller’s captors, Obama and his top national security officials hunted down Trump campaign aides. Baghdadi’s death should be a reminder—an infuriating one...

Keeping up with the Qardashians: new Islamic State caliph is Sharia judge Abdullah Qardash OCT 29, 2019 4:00 PM BY ROBERT SPENCER “After his release Qardash served as a religious commissar and a general sharia judge for al-Qaeda…” A “religious commissar and a general sharia judge”? What? Don’t these people realize that al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (ISIS) have nothing whatsoever to do with Islam? Pope Francis should head to Iraq now to explain their peaceful religion to al-Baghdadi and Qardash. “The Professor – ISIS’s ‘cruel but popular’ new leader: Ex-Saddam officer Abdullah Qardash, who was imprisoned alongside Abu Bakr...

Arizona Democrat Party Chairman Felecia Rotellini falsely claimed Saturday that President Donald Trump “has aligned himself with ISIS.” Rotellini’s remarks were made during a discussion at the Citizens Clean Elections Commission’s “We the Voters” conference, which was held at the Phoenix Convention Center, an hour before the White House announced the killing of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

What a shame Washington political and media elites couldn't briefly halt their uncivil domestic political brawl to applaud a victory over the world's most vicious international terrorist organization, the Islamic State group of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS. A more unified and strategically thoughtful reaction to ISIS commander, mass rapist, savage torturer, mass murderer and slaver Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's justified slaying would have magnified the effects of the Pentagon's military operation by sending a clear and powerful message with moral weight and what strategists call "deterrence value" to challenge terrorist propaganda appeals. My obituary sketch of al-Baghdadi's documented atrocities is...

The Washington Post obituary read, "Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, austere religious scholar at helm of Islamic State, dies at 48." "(A)ustere religious scholar"? How about terrorist?! After Twitter world went berserk, The Post obituary reappeared with a new headline: "Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, extremist leader of Islamic State, dies at 48." At a time when we should all share President Trump's exuberance about catching and destroying a terrorist, mass murderer and rapist -- a threat to our nation and all the civilized world -- The Washington Post accused the president of "creating a spectacle" around this great achievement. Once again we are...

KAYLA MUELLER (before being kidnapped, tortured and raped by al-Baghdadi) KAYLA MUELLER (after being kidnapped, tortured and raped by Washington Post's ‘Austere Religious Scholar’ al-Baghdadi)

President Trump wants the heroic dog who cornered the world’s most wanted terrorist to visit the White House. Trump released on Monday night a photo of the dog, whose name has not been declassified. The canine is credited with chasing Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi through an underground tunnel in Syria before the terrorist detonated a suicide vest, killing himself and three of his children. An invite to the White House has not yet been extended to the Belgian Malinois, but Trump wants to meet the canine, a senior administration official told ABC News. Gen. Mark Milley, chairman...

A former associate of slain Islamic State (ISIS) chief Abu-Bakr al-Baghdadi told Saudi Arabia's al-Arabiya news network that the group lost $25 million dollars by hiding it in the desert in an interview published on Monday. Mohamed ali-Sajet, currently under Iraqi custody and reportedly cooperating with authorities, told the network that al-Baghdadi had excellent hiding tactics.

The remains of ISIS leader and founder Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi were disposed at sea after he died during the U.S. military raid that targeted his compound in northwest Syria over the weekend, a U.S. official confirmed Monday. Authorities would not reveal details about which U.S. Navy ship was used for the burial or in which body of water it took place, but they told ABC News that the procedure was similar to the one used to dispose of the remains of al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden. In Islam, people are typically buried in the ground, without a casket, before the...

"I still say Kayla should be here, and if Obama had been as decisive as President Trump, maybe she would have been," Marsha Mueller said, referring to the death of her daughter at the hands of ISIS chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. "After Kayla's death, the Muellers became outspoken critics of the American government's handling of its foreign hostages. They had been encouraged to keep her captivity secret, and discouraged from attempting to free her or pay a ransom." Leaving aside the question of whether Obama ever had a good tactical option at rescuing Kayla Mueller, "decisive" is probably the wrong...

The Washington Post is not alone when it comes to kind remembrances of the ISIS terrorist Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who died igniting a suicide vest in a tunnel in northwest Syria on Saturday as U.S. troops closed in. During special coverage of President Donald Trump’s announcement on Sunday of the successful mission, National Public Radio (NPR) praised the man who was responsible for beheading three Americans and enslaving and killing an American woman. Host Lulu Garcia-Navarro led a roundtable discussion with NPR reporters Greg Myre, Tamara Keith and Daniel Estrin about Baghdadi’s death and asked them to tell listeners about...

Washington Post columnist Max Boot made a change to his column on Monday after coming under criticism for stating that the late ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was not a coward because “he blew himself up” over being captured by U.S. forces. “An earlier version of this column included a sentence questioning whether Trump was right to call Baghdadi a coward because he blew himself up,” Boot wrote late Monday in explaining the change. “The line was removed because it unintentionally conveyed the impression that I considered Baghdadi courageous.” Boot also deleted a tweet in which he essentially made the...

Spearheaded a “movement we’ve never seen before.” NPR gushed over ISIS terror leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, describing him as a “real leader” who spearheaded a “movement we’ve never seen before.” During a roundtable discussion about Baghdadi’s death, NPR reporter Greg Myre all but praised the man responsible for beheading three Americans and enslaving and killing an American woman. “He led a movement that we’ve never seen before,” Myre said. “ISIS had tens of thousands of members, fighters, coming in from all over the world.” “They controlled massive amounts of territory — in Eastern Syria and Western and Northern Iraq,” Myre...

“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!,” Trump said he president didn’t identify who was killed, but reports have said two ISIS members were in line to replace Baghdadi. Abdullah Qardash, known as “The Destroyer,” was believed to be the new No. 1 terrorist. He had been running day-to-day operations of the terror group and took over Saturday following Baghdadi’s death.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has congratulated United States President Donald Trump on the elimination of Islamic State terror-movement leader Abu-Bakr Al-Baghdadi. Bin Salman said the historic operation was another step in the fight against terrorism...