I’d be surprised. Those various national military forces don’t really have any desire to shoot down our helicopters. For example, we supposedly made a deconfliction notification to the Russians. Using stealthy helicopters after that would be counter-productive.
Except the orange cretin bragged how an attempt to shoot down the aircraft was detected and suppressed during the mission. Wonder who else has the technology to detect and act quickly against fast low altitude aircraft. In that region, probably just about everyone.
How many “major” leaders of ISIS\Al-Qaeda\other terrorist groups have been killed already? And how does the movement still survive after 18 years of war with all these leaders being offed? This is suspiciously nearing Vietcong body count territory.
What’s the alternative - not kill the leaders?
How about converting the followers to being adherents of the American Dream?
Hearts, minds and/or wallets. That sort of stuff.
'Cause if MAGA just involves shooting everybody who has different beliefs, these guys have been following that cult for quite a while.
Yeah really. Hell, I recall a fair number of reports of exploits of taking out the #2 “ISIS\Al-Qaeda\other terrorist groups” ( well, maybe not ISIS…too early ) head honcho guy until Bin Laden got smoked. There never seemed to be an end to the amount #2 bad guys for a while there.
This makes as little sense as if someone were to say, “How come Garfield, McKinley, Lincoln and Kennedy were all assassinated, and in each case, a vice president succeeded them as president? How come the presidency has never remained permanently vacant despite all 4 assassinations?”
Richard Engel, NBC News:
US hasn’t confirmed this death. al-Muhajir was al-Baghdadi’s key aide and a spokesman for the group.
It hasn’t been a good week for ISIS.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/abcnews.go.com/amp/International/wireStory/syrian-kurdish-forces-killed-close-al-baghdadi-aide-66579049
Well, yeah. You kill #2, #3 gets promoted to take his space. You kill him, and the guy that used to be #4 takes his place. You kill everyone in Al Qaeda except two dudes, one of the is gong to be the #2 guy in Al Qaeda.
I think the implication is that after awhile, is killing the #2 that big of a deal, or are you just taking out the Al Qaeda Secretary of Health and Human Services.
A photo has been released of the hero dog that captured and killed al-Baghdadi.
That’s pretty much it. They loved making hay of taking out the #2 bad guy ( again, and again and again ) to buck up the public in the face of not being able to get the head honcho.
I thought dogs were all lying begging cheating cowards who cry and get fired.
Good dog! Belly rub!!
They also get kicked out of ABC News debates. It’s a dog’s life.
While all the focus has been on the dramatic raid on al-Baghdadi’s compound that ended in his death, I think the more intriguing and audacious mission could be this one - I hope they make a movie about it.
Maggie Haberman, NYT: