U.S. Says It Destroyed Baghdadi Compound to Prevent Shrine to Terror Leader by Nancy A. Youssef – Wall Street Journal
U.S. military special operations forces destroyed the compound where a raid last weekend led to the death of Islamic State founder Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to assure that the site didn’t become a shrine to the extremist leader, a top commander said Wednesday.
Speaking to reporters at the Pentagon for the first time since the weekend raid in northwestern Syria, Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, head of U.S. forces in the Middle East, released a series of videos showing the launch of the raid and the subsequent destruction of the compound in a giant cloud of smoke and debris.
Adding new details about the raid, Gen. McKenzie said Baghdadi apparently tried to shoot at the U.S. forces closing in on the tunnel where he hid with two children believed under the age of 12 years, before detonating a suicide vest…