The UN has not yet been able to confirm the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdad.

Uh oh.

Courtesy of Reuters: 

The US President’s statement on the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi sounded confident, but the United Nations is still unable to confirm the death of the Islamic State leader for lack of proof, a high-ranking UN official has said.

The UN Monitoring Team on terrorist groups is going to put questions to the US and other involved parties to clarify the fate of al-Baghdadi, Edmund Fitton-Brown, a British diplomat who coordinates the team, told RIA Novosti news agency.

“All we have so far is the public announcement from the Americans, but it does seem like a very confident announcement. They seem very sure of themselves. They claim that they have verified it… So, I think that should be taken very seriously.”

However, Fitton-Brown pointed out that Washington “would be setting themselves up to a considerable embarrassment” if the report on the death of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) chief turns out to be false

I am going to stay a little agnostic here.

I have absolutely no problem believing that Trump would lie about this incident, the man lies about fucking EVERYTHING. 

I also beleive that people in Trump’s administation would lie to back him up, we have already seen that multiple times. 

However there have been military people who have come forward and confirmed this kill, some even criticizing the fact that Trump revealed too many detaisl of the operation, and that is a little harder to dismiss. 

So as of right now, I am just not sure what to believe. 

But one thing of which I am quite certain is that Trump either lied about or exaggerated, the details surrounding the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Courtesy of The Guardian:

Footage of the US special forces raid on Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s Syrian compound reportedly consisted of overhead surveillance footage and no audio, prompting questions over the extent of the dramatic licence taken by Donald Trump in describing the final moments of one of the most wanted terrorists in the world.

US officials who also watched the feed have declined to echo details of Trump’s macabre account of the Isis’s leader death on Saturday, including that Baghdadi was “whimpering, crying and screaming all the way”.

The White House monitored the Syria operation through video feeds that Trump said was “as though you were watching a movie”.

The footage piped into the situation room would have consisted of overhead surveillance shots of the dark compound with heat signatures differentiating between US fighters and others, intelligence and military officials told the New York Times.

Those cameras would not have been able to peer into the tunnel where Baghdadi died, nor provide audio proof of his conduct during the last minutes of his life.

The soldiers involved would have been wearing body cameras, but that footage was yet to be given to the White House at the time of Trump’s press conference, the Times report said.

Some are suggesting that Trump may have talked to some of the commanders on the ground to get those specifics about Baghdadi’s last moments, but it seems highly unlikely.

I have to say that I had serious doubts that Trump’s description was accurate because it sounded very similar to the kind of bullshit that Trump feeds to the supporters who show up for his white supremacist rallies.