US President Donald Trump says he may declassify and release part of the video taken on Saturday of the raid in Syria in which Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed.
The video is believed to include aerial footage and possibly footage from cameras mounted on the soldiers who stormed Baghdadi’s compound.
“We’re thinking about it. We may,” Trump told reporters before flying to Chicago. “We may take certain parts of it and release it.”
Trump said on Sunday that Baghdadi had died “whimpering and crying” in a raid by US special forces in Syria, fulfilling his top national security goal.
World leaders welcomed Baghdadi’s death but said the campaign against Islamic State, a group that carried out atrocities in the name of a fanatical version of Islam, was not over, with so-called lone wolves likely to seek revenge.
“He was a sick and depraved man and now he’s gone,” said Trump. “He died…whimpering and crying and screaming.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to say if the US had told Russia about the operation in advance.
French President Emmanuel Macron said Baghdadi’s death was a major blow against Islamic State but “the fight continues to finally defeat this terrorist organization”.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: “We will work with our coalition partners to bring an end to the murderous, barbaric activities of Daesh (Islamic State) once and for all.”
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said: “This is a many-headed monster … As you cut one off, another one inevitably arises.”
In south-east Asia, an important focus for Islamic State, officials said security forces were preparing for a long battle to thwart the group’s ideology.
The Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, home to some of Asia’s most organized Islamist militants, said they were braced for retaliation by Islamic State loyalists, including “lone wolf” attacks by radicalized locals.
In the hours before Trump’s announcement, sources in the region had described the raid on a compound in the village of Barisha, in Idlib province bordering Turkey, in the early hours of Sunday.
Trump said eight helicopters carried US special forces to Baghdadi’s compound, where they were met with gunfire before blasting their way in.
The president said he watched the operation in the Situation Room of the White House.
At the height of its power, Islamic State ruled over millions of people from northern Syria to the outskirts of Baghdad.
Thousands of civilians were killed by the group as it mounted what the United Nations called a genocidal campaign against Iraq’s Yazidi minority.
It also caused worldwide revulsion by beheading foreign nationals from countries including the United States, Britain and Japan.
The group has claimed responsibility for or inspired attacks in cities including Paris, Nice, Orlando, Manchester, London and Berlin, and in Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
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