Former National Intelligence Director James Clapper said he was worried the killing of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi might “galvanize” the remaining parts of ISIS.
“What is going to be interesting is to the extent to which this negatively affects ISIS or does it galvanize ISIS, the remnants of ISIS, which still survives as an ideology and has franchises in other places besides Syria,” Clapper said Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union.
Clapper said it was important to keep troops in Syria to combat ISIS. “ISIS is more than just al-Baghdadi, as important as he was,” he said. “I don’t think we can say at this point that we can stop worrying about ISIS.”
President Trump made an announcement Sunday morning at a press conference that U.S. special operations had killed the ISIS leader.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was critical of the president’s handling of the raid, saying he should have told her about it beforehand.
Trump said he wanted to keep the raid secret because of how many leaks occur in Washington, D.C.
