donald trump s precipitous decision to withdraw from syria, a decision, by the way, which has now been reversed. we won t get into that. but a deal between ankara and moscow was to carve up the region of northern and northeast syria, yeah. and the most important thing for the russians is to ensure that idlib is no longer a stronghold or a safe haven for jihadist organizations that are looking to attack russia s primary military base, which is just to the west of idlib province. so idlib is the center of action, as far as i m concerned, as a syria watch. that s where the deal making is going to take place. so for baghdadi to go there is quite extraordinary for somebody like me. this is the last a place i would expect him to go. i would expect him to go either into iraq, which, by the way, right now is in the midst of a massive crisis verging almost on a civil war.
he also had a target on his back and u.s. forces and their local kurdish partners ferociously attacked that state. and now sending their leader on the run, and now it seems, according to multiple sources, that he was targeted in a raid near the turkish border in a place called in a province called idlib, which was a fallback position for many of the extremist fighters. and that the man who lost his caliphate apparently lost his life. richard, earlier we spoke to michael weiss of the daily beast who said he was surprised that this region near the turkish border, this is where baghdadi allegedly was. does it surprise you as well that he was in that location? reporter: no, no, i wouldn t say at all. his world was shrinking rapidly. there are a lot of competing islamist groups there, but there
if al qaeda, as is widely known, is the predominant jihadist organization in idlib, is still in control of that province which i am not under any, you know, indication that it s not it s very strange that baghdadi would go to that area of northwestern syria. again, the area that isis has thrived in has been jazeera, which is the eastern, mostly central and southeastern syria. this is the area that is the gateway, the border lands between syria and iraq. remember, isis it came into its own in iraq. it was known as al qaeda in iraq as richard pointed out. but when it was strategically defeated in the period of about 2010 to 2011, it repaired into syria. this is where it s basically set up shop. vis-a-vis, the desert lands, the areas that are difficult for any kind of government or regime to
being made on the side lines here that do not, frankly, involve the united states. principally between turkey and russia. so, you know, when i first saw evidence on social media that there was a raid into northwest syria, the allegations being made then were it was actually the turks that were invading in idlib province to mount some kind of special operations raid against al qaeda in idlib. now the reporting seems to suggest this is a u.s. raid targeting baghdadi. this is very strange, given the circumstances of the last two weeks, right? so i have a lot of questions about, a, how he got there. b, how the u.s. figured out he got there. and c, when the u.s. figured this out, because, again, there have been so many major developments happening in this part of the world in the last two weeks. it s almost impossible to keep track of them. all right, michael, thank you
it s been a dramatic turn. it s now looking like assad will outlast president obama. something most of us thought was unthinkable just a few years ago. there are obviously still pockets of resistance throughout syria, but the fact that aleppo is in complete control of the government seems to suggest that he will hold on to power. there is no question. you can t underestimate the importance of eastern aleppo. for more than four years since the rebels took hold in the eastern part of the city it was their base of operations. they directed operations out of there, they had communications. they with activists in touch with people across the city and in fact around the world. what happens when you take that base away? what happens to the revolution? we know they re now in the countryside and a province called idlib. idlib also has a strong isis presence and a strong al qaeda presence. these are groups that have all been fighting each other in this kind of weird mess of syria s