How the US found Al Baghdadi

The information about Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's general location - in a village in northwestern Syria controlled by al-Qaeda groups - came following the arrest and interrogation of one of his wives and a courier this past summer, two American officials said. Armed with that initial tip, the CIA worked closely with Iraqi and Kurdish intelligence to identify al-Baghdadi's precise whereabouts and to put spies in place to monitor his movements. Syrian and Iraqi Kurds provided more intelligence for the raid than any single country, one official said.

At midnight Sunday morning, eight American helicopters took off from a military base near Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan. The helicopters flew all the way across Syria for 70 minutes to the Barisha area just north of Idlib city in western Syria. Just before landing, the helicopters and other warplanes began firing on a compound of buildings, providing cover for commandos with the Delta Force and their military dogs to descend into a landing zone.

Al-Baghdadi, wearing a suicide vest, ran into an underground tunnel, taking three children with him to use as human shields. When the commandos dispatched a military dog to subdue al-Baghdadi, he set off the explosives, killing himself and the three children. The American troops were on the ground for two hours, scooping up information on ISIS operations. Once all the Americans had started the return flight to Iraq, American planes bombed the compound to ensure it was destroyed.