these young kids that want to leave various countries including the united states, they should see how he died. he didn t die a hero. he died a coward. max, isis was the main reason the u.s. went into syria. now the isis leader is dead. does this sort of put a bow on the president s rationale for pulling troops out of syria? might this go a long way to convincing the american people it s time for those troops to leave, mission accomplished? people do take that perspective but i think it will be very shortsighted. simply killing a terrorist leader does not necessarily kill the organization. remember in 2016 a u.s. drone strike killed the leader of the taliban and the taliban are as much of a threat as ever in afghanistan. also remember in 2006, the u.s. joint special operations command
were involved in the raid that there were no american casualties and he thanked russia, iraq and the kurds in syria for cooperating. not much is left of the compound where baghdadi was confirmed to be hiding out. that s where the isis leader ran until he was cornered. he died after running into a dead end tunnel whimpering and crying and screaming all the way. he had dragged three of his young children with him. they were led to certain death. he reached the end of the tunnel as our dogs chased him down. he ignited his vest killing himself and the three children. his body was mutilated by the blast. this is one of the few images of baghdadi has seen. president trump told reporters
terrorist leader is now dead. this is new drone video of what remains of that compound in syria, where isis founder was targeted this weekend, where he was confronted with u.s. special forces and where we re told he blew himself up to avoid capture. he s aware of others that want to step up and take his place. we ve already got them in our sights and we ll tell you that right now, but we know the successors. cnn international diplomatic editor joins us in london. the details we re hearing of this mission similar to the bin laden raid in 2011. the nighttime operation, the identification process, you stood in that bin laden compound. does the death of the isis leader have the same gravity and significance as the death of bin laden? bin laden was a bigger fish
morning in his presentation, but the thing that s most important, you know, the focus is on the special operators that conducted the operation, but the intelligence, cia, dia, other nations specifically iraq and the kurdish fighters were the ones that provided the key information which led to the tracking down of baghdadi and this has been going on, the attempt to get him has been going on for over five years and they got not only great intelligence but they also got lucky. does it alleviate any of the concern of the u.s. pulling out of syria and having those people on the ground especially when it comes to the concern of the power vacuum involving isis there. ? no, i don t think so. and if you remember back about five years ago when the fight against isis first started, we had zero personnel in syria and the commanders on the scene were asked to go in there. general and a special operation
because of what he did to the united states. there s no doubt about that on september the 11th. but what baghdadi was capable of and what he executed on the ground in syria and iraq and the number of people, the sheer scale of his terrorism if you will, yes, it makes his death significant as well and his network is perhaps more capable at the moment than al qaeda s was when bin laden was taken down. officials in iraq say baghdadi s death is no big deal and there are experts who believe someone else will simply just take his place. what kind of a blow is this to isis as an organization? it s going to create a psychological impact. they re going to have to scramble to put somebody else in his place. already nominated somebody else. they knew there was a big price tag on his head. isis is not where it was a few