How social media reacted to news of Daesh leader Baghdadi's death

On Sunday October 27, US President Donald Trump announced that Daesh leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi had been killed in a raid in Syria.

The so-called ‘caliph’ of Daesh was responsible for ordering many atrocities carried out by the terror group.

In a news conference, Trump said Baghdadi’s capture or death had been “a priority” for his administration and that the terrorist leader had been “whimpering” and “crying” in his last moments as he “died like a dog”.

Twitter was abuzz with the news of Baghdadi’s death and Trump’s delivery. User Clifford L Freedom, followed by Barack Obama, pointed out the exaggerated, film-like aspects of Trump’s retelling of the story of Baghdadi’s death.

Political analyst and former under secretary of state in the Obama administration Richard Stengel has also criticised Trump’s speech, saying that the president drawing parallels between the dying terrorist and a cornered dog would only alienate “mainstream Muslims … who should be our allies”.

Journalist Mehdi Hassan has celebrated the death of Baghdadi “whose primary victims were Muslims, who was loathed by Muslims”.

Middle East reporter Sam Dagher cautioned about the events in other Middle Eastern countries, namely Iraq and Syria, that should also be the focus of the West rather than solely rejoicing Baghdadi’s death.

Writer for The Intercept, Murtaza Mohammad Hussain, compared the death of Osama bin Laden with the death of Abu Bakr al Baghdadi.

Some have also insinuated that Trump was not at the White House when the operation began, preferring to golf instead. One of these people was Jon Cooper, President of the Democratic Coalition.

The main suggestion that something was amiss came from Pete Souza, White House photographer during the Obama administration, who checked the timestamp of the Trump photo released with his raid staff and compared it with the start time of the operation.

Trump was also criticised for opting to share critical information about the Daesh raid with the Russians rather than the US Congress. Christine Pelosi, a Democratic Party political strategist from California who happens to be the daughter of Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, said this reflected the Trump presidency “in a nutshell”.

Trump wasn’t the only one being criticised for his delivery. The Washington Post called Bagdhadi “an austere religious scholar” in its headline for his obituary, much to many people’s disappointment. The newspaper’s Vice President of Communications Kristine Coratti Kelly apologised in a tweet.

But the damage to the newspaper’s reputation was done.

Then came the parody #WaPoDeathNotices. A memorable one was written by Twitter user Andrew Leber for Osama bin Laden of Al Qaeda infamy. Leber ironically called the terrorist killed during the Obama administration a “scion of major contracting firm”, making no mention of his ‘extracurricular’ activities.