0 the control of central command. tony. >> two quick questions. what happened to his body? was it carried away like with bin laden's body or too badly damaged? and two, administration officials told reporters today this had been planned for a long, long time, the president was presented in december with a tabletop model of the compound or the building. why was the raid now versus two or three weeks ago or a month ago? can you shed any light on that? >> yeah. his body was left at the site. as for the time being, it is correct, this was a mission long planned, months in planning as i mentioned to jen, but, look, you have to build enough context around the individual's pattern of life, and you have to factor in external factors that you don't get to control like the weather. so lots of things go into make a decision about when you execute a raid of this complexity and this danger, and there were a lot of factors that had to line up to be just right. you have to, you know, make sure that your intelligence is solid and that the individual that you're going after is, in fact, at the location you believe him to be and that all the external factors -- not just the weather but the ability to operate at that particular time of day and have enough visibility -- all those things factor in. it was multiple factors. it all came together such that this was the best window to execute this mission. and i would remind you that it's not like we were just sitting on our hands for those months. i mean, as you probably saw in the secretary's statement, these special operations forces conducted dozens of rehearsals to make sure that they could get this exactly right. mike breast? >> hi, mr. kirby. thanks for taking my question. i'm hoping you can vo provid a little insight into where isis stands right now, the threat they pose between the raid at the prison two weeks ago and abdullah's assassination. where do things stand in syria as well as globally? >> well, i'll tell you what, they're leaderless today, and that's a significant blow. this is not something that we believe isis is going to be able to just get over real quickly and easily. that said, they are not the force that they were in 2014 as we all remember that -- their growth and rapid acceleration across iraq and syria. this is a -- isis is not the threat of the same significant nature they were back then. but they still remain a viable threat. we've talked about that many times, that this is a group that wants to reconstitute its strength, wants to continue to attack and kill and maim and terrorize. and haji abdullah was very much involved in trying to resuscitate the group and to grow their capabilities. they remain a threat to us, our national security, and the lives of innocents. as the secretary said today, we're going to stay at it. >> hi, john. thanks. a couple quick questions. first, on the efforts to get civilians out of the building, you said that they had to call it out to them with a bull horn. can you say specifically how long they gave civilians to leave the building? and secondly, when we look at photos of the compound and see the damage to the building, was that primarily from the suicide bomb or were u.s. munitions used on that building? thanks. >> the damage you see in the picture with the third floor collapsed onto the second and even more than that, that was caused by abdullah igniting an explosive device, which, as i said, killed himself and his family. as for time, travis, i don't have a minute by minute. there were numerous calls made to encourage everyone in the building to leave, numerous calls made. and at some point not too far into the operation, abdullah exploded this device and that precipitated more activity by at least one shooter from the building, that led to u.s. force going in, and to your point about, you know, how much time did we give people to -- i would remind that u.s. forces actually extricated four children from the second floor after they went into the building. so the efforts to save the lives of innocents wasn't just in the opening gambit here with the bull horn. i mean, it was well into the operation. it was something that was was ever present on their minds. mike glenn? >> do you believe that this raid might have prevented any future specific terrorist missions they were going to carry out? >> you were kind of breaking up, mike. i think your question was do we have information that his death. is that it? >> yes. that's it. >> we don't have information that suggests that, mike, but i would remind this was the leader of is is and he was a very hands-on leader. he was involved in helping direct a lot of operations. so we have no doubt that his death will have a blow on isis and their potential to conduct future operations. i do want to remind that they are still a threat and we're not -- nobody's taken a victory lap here. we're going to stay at this. they still remain a threat. they still espouse this extreme ideology and this intent to kill, to maim, to terrorize, and so we're going to stay focused on it. dan. >> it sounds like they went back at least as far as december involving senior commanders and that sort of thing. can you lay out a bit of what this looked like in terms of how far it goes, who it involved, that kind of thing? thank you. >> yeah, dan, i'm not going to be able to go into more detail than i already have. this was several months in the planning. it included actual physical rehearsals, as i said dozens by the special operations forces as well as you can imagine some tabletop planning as well. i don't have a ticktock of exactly how all that process worked out. it was extensively planned, extensively resourced, and quite frankly extensively formed turnover course of several months. jen? >> talking about russia and ukraine, there's a report that the u.s. has evidence that russia has developed a plan approved at the highest levels of moscow to create a pretext for invading the ukraine by falsely pinning the attack on ukrainian forces that could involve casualties inside eastern ukraine but also in russia, reported by "the washington post." is that report accurate? has that intelligence been declassified? what can you tell us? >> what i can tell you is first of all we've discussed the idea of false flag base the russians before. we've made no secret of that. and we do have information that it is -- that the russians are likely to want to fabricate a pretext for an invasion, which, again, is right out of their playbook. one option is the russian government, we think, is planning to stage a fake attack by ukrainian military or intelligence forces gen russian sovereign territory or against russian-speaking people, to therefore justify their action. as part of this fake attack, wedge that russia would produce a very graphic propaganda video which would include corpses and actors that would be depicting mourners and images of destroyed locations as well as military equipment at the hands of ukraine or the west even to the point where some of this equipment would be made to look like it was western supplied, ukrainian -- to ukraine equipment. so -- and this is just one example that we can talk about today. we're watching this across the board. we've seen these kinds of activity by the russians in the past and we believe it's important when we see it like this, and we can, to call it out. >> this is being briefed on the hill right now as part of the -- >> they're on the hill in a classified briefing to talk about the whole spate of things we're concerned about with respect to russia and ukraine. it's classified briefing, so i'm not going to get into an agenda item here in terms of everything i'm talking about. but they are both up on the hill communicating with members of congress. what we're seeing writ large and what we're doing about it to help our nato allies. >> do you know it has been approved at the highest level of the kremlin, this particular case? >> i would say our experience is very little of this nature is not approved at the highest levels of the russian government. is too by that, you mean putin. >> the highest levels of the russian government. kelly meyer. >> you mentioned the mechanical issue on the helicopter. those involved okay or did everything run like clockwork? second, on the u.s. army dismissing vaccinated soldiers, are any of them on high alert to go to -- >> in terms of the army, who they're discharging with respect to the vaccine mandate, but i expect there's privacy concerns there, so i don't want to speak for the army, but i don't know if thaw i'll be able to give you this level of specify ti. it remains a readiness issue. vaccines work, and we want everybody to take them and to keep safe, to keep their units safe. as for the helicopter crew, my understanding is that they're all fine. as we said at the top, there were no u.s. casualties, and that would include the helicopter crew. it wasn't a crash landing. they landed safely. again, it was a drivetrain issue that rendered that helicopter unusable for the rest of the operation. so obviously it was destroyed, but the crew are safe and sound. somebody from afp? >> hello. sorry. sorry. can you tell us how many helicopters and how many u.s. troops were involved? >> sylvie, i'm not going to answer that question, actually. back when i opened up the press conference i told you there's going to be some detail we can't provide because we want to preserve our ability to continue to conduct these sorts of operations. what i would tell you is that we had exactly the force levels and exactly the resources we needed to conduct this operation, and i'll leave it at that. tara? >> thanks, john. following up on bob's question, can you confirm whether any sort of intelligence was taken from the compound, any computer drives or cell phones? and then secondly, to follow up on louie's question, the decisions that were made in this raid, do they incorporate any lessons learned from the civilian casualty report done after the august 29th strike? thank you. >> i've kind of addressed that second question before when louie asked it. i mean, we always try to avoid civilian harm. this operation was of a completely different character than the air strike thanned on the 29th of august. but in general, we always try to learn from previous missions, from previous operations. these are two completely different operations. and the desire to avoid civilian harm was baked in months ago into this particular plan. in fact, the decision itself to conduct a raid using special operations forces speaks volumes of the degree to which the president was trying to avoed civilian har and quite frankly putting our force at greater risk because of the decision to make a raid like this. and i'm sorry, but i should have written your other question down and i didn't do it. >> oh, about the -- can you confirm whether any sort of computer drives or cameras or anything else were taken from the compound that could provide actual intelligence moving forward? >> yeah, look, as i told bob, i'm not going to get into talking about intelligence matters one way or the other. it is common practice when we conduct raids like this that we try to collect material that can help us and inform us in terms of our ability to disrupt future attacks and to conduct future operations. i think i'm just going to lave it at that. nancy? >> thank you. i wonder if you could clarify a couple points. on the explosion that happened on the third floor, does the u.s. believe that the isis leader was wearing a suicide vest or was exposed to a separate event, and was it one explosive? can you tell us if there was any -- with any other nation and can you tell us who will lead the review of any possible civilian casualties by the u.s.? >> there's been no decision for a review. this operation is not even 24 hours old. the secretary we're willing to take a look to see if there's any possibility that anything we did might have caused harm to innocent life, but i have no investigational review to speak to today. as for the explosion, all i can tell is what we've already said. there was a large explosion early on in the operation on the third floor, which killed haji abdullah and his family. we believe he detonated that explosion. we cannot say at this time exactly what this device was. so i leave it at that. and then you had -- your first question. i'm not good at -- i got to write these down. what was your first question? >> just to be clear, i was asking when you say that review, though, that you said the secretary would be doing, i'm trying to understand who would do that. and the other question was there any notification for other countries? >> we're not calling for a review, nancy. this operation literally happened last night. the secretary said we're going to look and see if there's any possibility that any action that we conducted might have led to the loss of innocent life, and if there is, then we'll make decisions and follow on that. i don't want to leave you with the impression there's an investigation in the offing here. that's not where we are at this point. as for deconfliction, i would tell you that deconfliction at the appropriate time was conducted in order to make sure that this operation can proceed safely. and i think i'll leave that there. promote deconfliction as happens in that part of syria was conducted in this case. let's see. helene cooper? >> hi. thanks, john. does this commando raid in sere yo send a message of any kind to vladimir putin? >> this raid was not meant to send a message to any other nation. it was meant to remove haji abdullah from his leadership of isis, and to that degree, it was successful. and we are immensely proud of the forces that conducted this and planned it, resourced it, executed, rehearsed for it. it says a lot about our capability in counterterrorism, our focus, our continued focus on the isis threat, and our ability to plan and conduct an execution of this magnitude and with this complexity with the utmost professionalism and skill and, quite frankly, secrecy. i'll take a couple more. yeah. >> did the u.s. forces collect any information or documents, materials from the building? >> i've dealt with this question before a couple of times. it is routine that we try to collect useful material when raids of this kind are conducted. i'm not going to speak with any specificity about this one. okay. thanks, everybody. appreciate it. thanks, everybody. appreciate it. >> you've been listening to john kirby giving as many details as he can to the raid that took place earlier today. he's been briefing reporters, answering questions following the president's remarks this morning on the raid that took out isis' top leader and his deputy. all of this comes as president biden is in new york city at this moment. he's addressing a major domestic issue that could pose a big political risk for democrats in the midterm, rising crime particularly in urban centers. more on, that but we're learning a lot more about this raid in north west syria. it resulted in the depth of the current top isis leader, abu ibrahim hashimi al qureshi. he's been referring to him as haji abdullah, believed to be his gaven name, blew himself up in the raid according to officials, killings himself and his family. according to a senior administration official, u.s. forces were on the ground for nearly two hours. early in the operation, al qureshi exploded a bomb, killing himself, his wife, and children and others on the third floor. the pentagon confirmed there were no u.s. casualties. some draw comparisons to a 2019 raid which targeted al baghdadi, in which he also detonated an explosive, killing himself. president biden delivered remarks on this raid and the casualties before leaving for new york. >> our team is still compiling a report, but we do know that as our troops approach to capture the terrorists in a final act of desperate cowardness, with no regard to the lives of his own family or others in the building, he chose to blow himself up, with that vest, to blow up the third floor. this operation is testament to america's reach and capability to take out terrorist threats no matter where they try to hide anywhere in the world. >> joining me now is peter alexander at the white house, courtney kimby in the briefing and joins us in a moment, and also in a moment we'll hear from former supreme allied commander of nato forces. peter, did president biden watch this happen in real time? >> reporter: the white house said that he did, that he was in the situation room last night. they said he was monitoring it in real time, so it's unclear exactly how much of it he could see in real camera terms and how much of it he and the vice president and others were able to hear about. they were there throughout the entire affair until u.s. troops were off the ground. before he left, he said, "god bless our troops." as it relates to those u.s. special operations operations, operators on the ground there, we're learning new details tact way this all played out. as we heard from john kirby moments ago, they had drilled on this, they had been focused on this effort with rehearsals and with planning that dated back months. president biden was shown a tabletop model of that safe house back in december, and ult my vly it was on tuesday morning of this week in the oval office that he gave the green light, the final go-ahead order to secretary austin, the department of defense secretary at the pentagon, as well as general milley. as it relates to the specific individual, we're learning more details about what happened, he was on the third floor when he blew up his suicide vest, killings hymn, his wife, and two of his children. the u.s. officials including those at the pentagon right now are going to great lengths to demonstrate what they did to try to lessen the potential for casualties among civilians. president biden, chuck, earlier today saying instead of an air strike they chose to do this as an in-person raid. we heard from john kirby moments ago that there was a u.s. military translator or someone who was communicating with a loud speaker to those in the building to come out, to give themselves up, and ultimately that there were ten civilians who were safely evacuated from that building, among them eight children. on the second floor, that's where the lieutenant to this isis leader had been living along side his wife. we heard from kirby that both of them engaged in a firefight with american special operations forces on the ground there, and at least one of their children is believed to have been killed in that firefight. we heard from secretary austin a short time ago, chuck, acknowledging that it is possible that some innocent civilians were harmed or even killed in this effort. but the details are pretty remarkable about this. at this safe house, we learned from u.s. officials that this isis leader, al qureshi, that he never left the home, that he was basically commanding isis' global operations effectively through couriers. so a lot of new and remarkable details about it, not the least of which is that the u.s. forces there had to blow up their helicopter on the ground not after a hard landing but after a landing and it was determined to be unsafe to take off and detonated so hardware wouldn't get into any hands on the ground. >> do we think he, for instance, made the call for the attack in afghanistan, for instance, on our soldiers? >> reporter: it's a good question, one supposed to senior administration officials and to john kirby. while they're not drewing a direct line between al qureshi and that awful attack outside abby gate at the kabul airport last sum they're killed 13 american service members, they do say that that was conducted by isis-k, an affiliate of isis and ultimately he was the head of isis as we've heard from some of the