US releases video, images of Baghdadi raid, warns of likely retribution attack by ISIS | Watch 

Washington DC (USA) | Jagran News Desk: The Pentagon on Wednesday released the pictures and videos of the US special forces raid that resulted in the death of ISIS chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The Pentagon released the before and after pictures of the compound.

In the pictures shared by the Pentagon, the US special forces can be seen approaching on foot the high-walled compound in northwestern Syria where Baghdadi was holed up. While in a video shared by the Pentagon, a massive black plume of smoke rising from the ground after US military bombs leveled Baghdadi's compound.

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"It looks pretty much like a parking lot, with large potholes," said Marine General Kenneth McKenzie, the commander of US Central Command, which oversees American forces in the Middle East.

"Here we see the object of the assault-the compound where Baghdadi was hiding. As I noted earlier, this isolated compound was in Idlib province in Northwest Syria" - Gen Frank McKenzie CDR USCENTCOM pic.twitter.com/VwxRJMN0rS

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) October 30, 2019

pic.twitter.com/OzVfDjyOeV

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) October 30, 2019

McKenzie, briefing Pentagon reporters, said The idea of destroying the compound was at least in part "to ensure that it would not be a shrine or otherwise memorable in any way, said McKenzie while briefing the reporters in Pentagon.

"It's just another piece of ground," he said.

"...at the compound, fighters from two locations in the vicinity of the compound began firing on U.S. aircraft participating in the assault."
- Gen Frank McKenzie CDR USCENTCOM pic.twitter.com/SkrtHNDs7w

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) October 30, 2019

McKenzie also suggested that it was unlikely that Baghdadi used the Internet or had digital connections to the outside world.

"I think you'd find (he was using) probably a messenger system that allows you to put something on a floppy or on a bit of electronics and have someone physically move it somewhere," he said.

Baghdadi was killed by the US special forces in a raid on Saturday in northwestern Syria. He died by detonating a suicide vest as he fled into a dead-end tunnel as elite US special forces closed in.

(With Reuters inputs)