evidence: "The United States has been searching for Baghdadi for many years," Trump said from the White House. "Capturing or killing Baghdadi has been the top national security priority of my administration. U.S. special operations forces executed a dangerous and daring nighttime raid in northwestern Syria and accomplished their mission in grand style." [...] "Our military service members and our interagency partners executed brilliantly," the secretary told ABC correspondent Martha Raddatz. "So here we are. Earlier in the year, we defeated the physical caliphate — destroyed the physical caliphate — and now its leader is dead. So it's a great day." [...] Baghdadi was in a compound with a few other men and women and a large number of children. "Our special operators have tactics and techniques and procedures they go through to try and call him out," Esper said. "But at the end of the day, as the president said, he decided to kill himself and took some small children with him, we believe."