Real Dogs Like Conan Still Beat Killer Robots
The robots that didn’t track al-Baghdadi, and the brave dog that could
Were it not for the fact that he’s facing impeachment, the past few weeks could have been glorious for President Trump. The hearings in Washington, D.C. have taken the spotlight away from the successful mission on October 26 to kill Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Of course, the real success was that of the Delta Force strike team who carried off the tightly executed attack against al-Baghdadi’s bunker deep in Pakistan. In particular, the mission made a hero of the strike team’s canine support: a Belgian Malinois nicknamed Conan. With the advantage of declassified military updates, we now have a much better idea of how the strike unfolded.
After Delta Force broke into his compound, al-Baghdadi escaped into the labyrinthian tunnel network underneath, wearing a suicide vest and bringing two of his own young children with him. The Delta Force team was still suppressing al-Baghdadi’s bodyguards and family in the compound, some of whom were wearing their own suicide vests. Worse, the compound and tunnels were likely to be covered with booby traps and other explosives (Delta Force entered the compound by destroying a wall, to avoid the front door).
