Lavrov Says Al-Baghdadi Was US ‘Spawn’, His Death Is Still an Open Question

By Staff, Agencies

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said his country still cannot verify Washington’s claims about the elimination of Daesh [the Arabic acronym for terrorist ‘ISIS/ISIL’ group] leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, adding that the US facilitated the rise of the group in the first place.

Al-Baghdadi, the [now former] leader of the terrorist group “is or was if he is really dead a spawn of the United States,” Lavrov told the Russian Rossiya 24 broadcaster.

“Daesh as such came into existence in the wake of the US illegal invasion of Iraq, the collapse of the Iraqi state and the release of extremists that Americans previously kept in prisons there…”

Lavrov also noted that the Russian military still do not have enough information to confirm with confidence that the self-proclaimed ‘Caliph’ is indeed dead. “We want to get additional information,” he added.

US President Donald Trump pompously claimed that American Special Forces neutralized the terrorist leader in “a daring night-time raid” in northwest Syria, yet, his statement was met with skepticism by many.

While the Pentagon released drone footage of the raid, it offered little proof regarding al-Baghdadi’s demise itself. His mutilated body, found under the rubble of a collapsed tunnel, was allegedly buried at sea, but evidence for this assertion, too, essentially remains classified.