Published 15:03 IST, October 29th 2019
Donald Trump calls Osama bin Laden, Hamza "tall, very handsome"
ISIS chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's death announcement could have possibly been Trump's finest hour, however, the US President stunned the world in his speech.
ISIS chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's death announcement could have possibly been Donald Trump's finest hour, however, the US President stunned the world in a 10-minute speech confirming his death. In his address from the White House, Trump boasted of Baghdadi's gruesome death in Syria's province of Idlib, spun the spectacle around himself, even called Osama bin Laden and his son Hamza "tall and very handsome."
In a declaration of the so-called caliph's death as a result of US raid in northern Syria, Trump leveraged the opportunity to credit himself over former Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in a self-aggrandizing way, stating that he predicted 9/11 terror attack on the twin towers.
In the address, Trump said, "I also want Hamza bin Laden because he's a young man around 30, looks just like his father, tall, very handsome, and he was talking bad things just like his father."
"You know, if you read my book, there was a book just before the World Trade Center came down. And I don't get any credit for this but that's OK. I never do. But here we are. I wrote a book, a really very successful book and in that book about a year before the World Trade Center was blown up, I said there is somebody named Osama bin Laden, you better kill him or take him out, something to that effect, he's big trouble. Now, I wasn't in government. I was building buildings and doing what I did but I always found it fascinating. But I saw this man, tall, handsome, very charismatic making horrible statements about wanting to destroy our country. And I'm writing a book. I think I wrote 12 books. All did very well. And I'm writing a book, the World Trade Center had not come down. I think it was about if you check it was a year before the World Trade Center came down. And nobody heard of al-Baghdadi," he added.
Donald Trump claimed that "no one heard" of the Al Qaeda chief responsible for the ghastly terror attack, a claim that was false considering the CIA and US intelligence had full knowledge of Osama bin Laden.
"And no one heard of Osama bin Laden until really the World Trade Center. But about a year, a year and a half before the World Trade Center, before the book came out, I was talking about Osama bin Laden, you have to kill him, you have to take him out. Nobody listened to me. And to this day I get people coming up to me and they said you know what, one of the most amazing things I've seen about you is that you predicted that Osama bin Laden had to be killed before he knocked down the World Trade Center. It's true. Most of the press doesn't want to write that but it is true. If you go back and look at my book, I think it's 'The America We Deserve.' I made a prediction — let's put it this way, if they would have listened to me, a lot of things would have been different," Trump added.
However, according to AP fact check, Trump's 2000 book "The America We Deserve," makes a passing mention of bin Laden but did no more than point to the al-Qaida leader as one of many threats to US security. Nor does he say in the book that bin Laden should have been killed.
ISIS fighters flee prisons
While Donald Trump bragged over the death of Baghdadi under his regime, experts claimed that over 100 ISIS fighters are reportedly on a loose after escaping prisons in Syria. Earlier in October, Syrian detention camps holding ISIS fighters were weakened with Turkey's military incursion in the area. Trump faced fresh backlash for 'abandoning' Syrian Kurds who not only helped the US troops fight ISIS but also tracked down Baghdadi that led Americans to the most wanted terrorist in the world.
Some 12,000 ISIS fighters -- Syrians, Iraqis as well as foreigners from 54 countries -- are detained in Kurdish prisons, according to their official statistics. The displacement camps host some 12,000 foreigners -- 8,000 children and 4,000 women. The Syrian Kurdish Forces said that security has been beefed up at prisons holding ISIS fighters after Baghdadi's death.
Updated 15:23 IST, October 29th 2019