Secretary of State Mike Pompeo criticized the Washington Post for characterizing deceased Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi as an “austere religious scholar” in a headline.
The Washington Post published an obituary for Baghdadi on Sunday after the United States military carried out a weekend strike on the Islamic military leader’s compound in Syria. Baghdadi fled from U.S. Special Operations forces before killing himself and two of his children with a bomb.
The publication temporarily headlined the terrorist leader’s obituary as “Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, austere religious scholar at helm of Islamic State, dies at 48” after originally referring to him as “terrorist-in-chief.” The paper admitted the mistake and changed the headline again to call him an “extremist leader.”
“Boy, they’ve lost their way, I must say. It was sick to do that. This is a man who had killed hundreds. Last night on the show, you had the parents of Kayla Mueller. We are still out there working to get her back for those two amazing people,” Pompeo said.
Mueller was a human rights activist who was kidnapped in Syria in 2013. She was tortured and raped while being held by ISIS until she was killed in 2015.
“She was a wonderful young woman. To suggest now that Abu Bakr al Baghdadi was anything other than a murderous terrorist is truly sick,” Pompeo said.
