planning because in the ground floor of that building was a family, a wife and husband and four children, that we don t believe had any idea, knew who was on the third floor. we were focused on that family because one of the assumptions in the plan, we wanted to capture al qurayshi, known as abdullah, but we assumed like al baghdadi he might decide to kill himself. we actually rehearsed and the president in the back and forth asked about the structural stability of the building. we had engineers determine if there was an explosion on the third floor the lower level would remain sound. that s the extraordinary planning that the military undertook to make this load. this was not just al baghdadi s
detail and planning. joe biden was essential to this throughout, from the beginning of the intelligence leads from the beginning of the summer over the fall when we found and fixed this mission and planning the first operational meeting in december until the final go order in the oval office on tuesday. greg, good morningie. it is willie geist. one of the biggest concerns was the speedy withdrawal from afghanistan when 13 military members were killed, one of the big concerns was what afghanistan would become, a place for terrorists to gather and plot. what is your assessment since the withdrawal about where afghanistan is and what kind of threat it may pose to the united states? isis-k, of course isis-k pledged allegiance to hajjie abdullah so it will have an effect on them. our counterintelligence is working to maintain pressure on that network. afghanistan is very far from
relationships with, isis basically, is it not just a franchise operation now? this was one operation the other evening, but isis in the philippines and afghanistan certainly, but especially in africa, how stretched thin are our weaponry, our tactical forces in combatting this? well, we i mean isis is a global organization. every isis affiliate pledged allegiance to abdullah, the isis leader killed the other night and it is important to keep in mind. he was running by couriers, trying to keep in his hand and coordinating the global network. a lot of these affiliates take advantage of local insurgencies and a lot are local problems that can t threaten us at home, yet we work to keep pressure on them with our partnerships. this situation in syria not long ago 8 million were living under isis, its ability to project
power throughout the region and around the world was extremely serious. hajjie abdullah was working to try to reconstitute the network. i don t think he would have succeed but they ll have a harder time now. as things go, we are already following up on this operation. not only learning lessons from it but what did we learning about hajjie abdullah s operations, where is it going to lead? we think we have a good chance to uproot this network. hey, brett. good morning. jonathan lemire. this raid happened in a tough part of syria, land controlled by militant groups with ties to al qaeda. it seems from reporting some of the airspace needed for the u.s. to get there was controlled by the russian military. was moscow given a sign this was coming at a moment when we have increased tensions with the russians right now? jonathan, again, a great question. it goes to the complexity of these types of endeavors. we had a whole tiktok in terms of who we had to notify and