The US military has conducted an operation against elusive Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, a US official said, as US President Donald Trump prepares to make a "major statement" at the White House.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, was unable to say whether the operation against Baghdadi was successful.
Newsweek said it had been informed by a US Army official briefed on the raid that Baghdadi was dead.
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It said the operation took place in Syria's northwestern Idlib province and was carried out by special operations forces after receiving actionable intelligence.
The official, speaking to Reuters, did not disclose details of the operation and other US officials contacted by Reuters declined to comment. The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
White House spokesman Hogan Gidley announced late on Saturday (local time) that Trump would make a "major statement" at 9am US eastern time on Sunday.
Gidley gave no further details as to the topic of Trump's statement.
The President gave an indication that something was afoot earlier on Saturday night when he tweeted without explanation, "Something very big has just happened!"
Trump has been frustrated by the US news media's heavy focus on the Democratic-led impeachment inquiry, which he calls an illegitimate witch hunt.
He has also faced withering criticism from both Republicans and Democrats alike for his US troop withdrawal from northeastern Syria, which permitted Turkey to attack America's Kurdish allies.
Many critics of Trump's Syria pullout have expressed worries that it would lead the Islamic State militancy to regain strength and pose a threat to US interests. An announcement about Baghdadi's death could help blunt those concerns.
Baghdadi was long thought to be hiding somewhere along the Iraq-Syria border. He has led the group since 2010, when it was still an underground al-Qaeda offshoot in Iraq.
On September 16, Islamic State's media network issued a 30-minute audio message purporting to come from Baghdadi, in which he said operations were taking place daily and called on supporters to free women jailed in camps in Iraq and Syria over their alleged links to his group.
At the height of its power Islamic State ruled over millions of people in territory running from northern Syria through towns and villages along the Tigris and Euphrates valleys to the outskirts of the Iraqi capital Baghdad.
But the fall in 2017 of Mosul and Raqqa, its strongholds in Iraq and Syria respectively, stripped Baghdadi, an Iraqi, of the trappings of a caliph and turned him into a fugitive thought to be moving along the desert border between Iraq and Syria.
US air strikes killed most of his top lieutenants, and before Islamic State published a video message of Baghdadi in April there had been conflicting reports over whether he was alive.
Reuters
