Turkish Paper:

Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi Under Control of US Army Troops

Washington is helping ISIL commanders to flee Syria by providing them fake documents, a Turkish-language newspaper claimed, and said the terrorist group's ringleader is under the control of the US.

News ID: 443892

Date: 13 March 2019 - 21:04

RNA - The Yeni Shafaq published a picture of al-Baghdadi in a US armored vehicle, disclosing that the CIA spy agency is monitoring the presence of al-Baghdadi and his movements.

The Turkish newspaper pointed to the issuance of passport with new names and IDs for al-Baghdadi and 140 ISIL terrorists, and said that provision of the fake documents is just part of the US secret operations that is aimed at relocating the terrorists to Iraq.

It noted that the US spy agency has interrogated 2,000 ISIL terrorists in special centers that the US has set up in the camps controlled by the Kurdish forces in Syria and Iraq before giving new passports and documents to them.

This is while French, Israeli and British inspectors regularly visited the camps during interrogations.

Damascus has announced that the US and Turkey know the whereabouts of the ISIL (Daesh) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Syrian Ambassador to the UN Bashar al-Ja'afari said in an interview with al-Mayadeen television channel in early March that the West is working "to prolong the crisis in Syria" and that the administration of US President Donald Trump is seeking to keep up "investing in terrorism" in Syria and Iraq in order to pursue its agenda in the region.

He also accused the US-led coalition of transferring Daesh elements.

In a relevant development in early February, a senior source in the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said that al-Baghdadi was being protected by the Americans in Eastern Syria, adding that Washington plans to play a Hollywood-like scenario to declare end of the ISIL caliphate.

The Arabic-language website of Sputnik news agency quoted the source as saying on Sunday that Baghdadi was being heavily protected by the American forces in a secret place in Eastern Euphrates region.

He added that the Americans "are waiting for an opportunity to conduct heliborne operations by their marine forces in Southeastern Deir Ezzur and declare the capture of al-Baghdadi and end of ISIL on footage".

The source insisted that the time for the "above-mentioned theater is close", adding that the American forces have held SDF back from further advances in the ISIL-occupied regions in Eastern Euphrates to play the scenario.

US President Donald Trump said in early February that the country would likely announce that all of the ISIL terrorist group caliphate had been retaken in Syria and Iraq.

"It should be formally announced, sometime probably next week, that we'll have 100 percent of the caliphate," Trump stated during his remarks at a ministerial meeting of US-led coalition member states.

Earlier, the American president said during his second State of the Union address that it was time to return US troops deployed in Syria back home.

In December, Trump declared the ISIL terrorist group defeated in Syria, and announced the US troop pullout from the country but gave no timeline.

Also in early February, a senior US administration official told reporters that Syria’s Al-Tanf region would be the last place in the country that American troops leave as they implemented a planned withdrawal.

"In terms of Al-Tanf — that is, in terms of the drawdown plans — Al-Tanf would be the last place that we would withdraw from, and I think that’s something that has not been scheduled; it would be conditions-based," the official noted.

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