Former Presidential Envoy Brett McGurk said in a Washington Post article that "Turkey also has some explaining to do" when it comes to the leader of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

 

McGurk pointed out that "Baghdadi was found not in his traditional areas of eastern Syria or western Iraq, but rather in northwestern Syria — just a few miles from Turkey’s border, and in Idlib province, which has been protected by a dozen Turkish military outposts since early 2018."

 

This, said McGurk, "is telling that the U.S. military reportedly chose to launch this operation from hundreds of miles away in Iraq, as opposed to facilities in Turkey, a NATO ally, just across the border."

 

McGurk also underlined that "the United States also reportedly did not notify Turkey of the raid except when our forces came close to its borders, the same notification we would have provided to adversaries such as Russia and Syria."

 

The political analyst confirmed that "Idlib has become the world’s largest terrorist haven. Most of the nearly 40,000 foreign fighters that flooded Syria during its civil war came through Turkey into northwestern Syria."

 

Idlib is today "largely controlled by al-Qaeda’s formal affiliate in Syria, which itself is sustained by cross-border trade and enjoys symbiotic relationships with Turkey-backed opposition groups."

 

McGurk also praised the SDF and reminded President Trump that the US "ability to gain information in these areas will depend not on Turkey but on the other allies we have established in Syria, particularly the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). It was not a surprise to hear President Trump confirm that credible information leading to Baghdadi came from the SDF. This has been the case for nearly all similar operations targeting ISIS leaders in Syria."