US officials have announced that two adult males were taken captive during a raid in northwest Syria that led to the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS) group.
Addressing reporters alongside US Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Monday, Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the individuals were now in "our custody and ... in a secure facility".
He did not provide any details on the captives' identity.
Trump said on Sunday that al-Baghdadi had died during a military operation in the village of Barisha in Syria's Idlib province carried out by US special province the previous evening.
The US president said the ISIL leader had killed himself and three of his children by igniting an explosive vest after running into a dead-end tunnel beneath his compound as US forces closed in on him. No US personnel were killed in the operation, but one service dog was hurt by the explosion.
"The disposal of his [al-Baghdadi's] remains has been done and is complete and was handled appropriately," Milley told the briefing in the Pentagon, adding that Washington had no plans to release photos or videos of his death at this time.
Al Jazeera's Kimberley Halkett, reporting from Washington, DC, said the briefing had provided a "more substantive update" on the operation after Trump had done a "victory lap" over the 48-year-old's death.
Al-Baghdadi had long been a target for the US and regional security forces trying to eliminate ISIL even after the armed group was pushed out of the vast swathes of territory it once held across Iraq and Syria.
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES
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