A MILITARY dog wounded chasing down Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is already back at work, America’s top general has revealed.
The ISIS chief blew himself up along with three of his children after being cornered in a tunnel by Conan, who was wounded in the explosion.
President Donald Trump praised the dog in his remarks describing the battle that took place at Baghdadi’s compound.
He said the brave pooch could not be named as his identity was being protected – but reports suggest he was named Conan.
General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the courageous canine has recovered and is back at work.
He said Conan was “slightly wounded and fully recovering, but the dog is still in theatre, returned to duty with its handler”.
General Milley declined to name the dog or elaborate on its intended role saying the Department of Defense was “protecting the dog’s identity”.
Dog handlers named the animal after US comic Conan O’Brien, according to Newsweek.
Milley had previously expressed doubt that photos of the dog would be released any time soon but Trump later tweeted a snap.
“We have declassified a picture of the wonderful dog (name not declassified) that did such a GREAT JOB in capturing and killing the Leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi!,” he said.
The dog “went into the tunnel” where Baghdadi killed himself with a suicide vest, Trump said.
“Our canine, as they call – I call it a dog, a beautiful dog, a talented dog – was injured and brought back,” he said.
The military dog’s involvement in the Baghdadi raid echoes the mission that killed Osama Bin Laden – immortalised in the movie Zero Dark Thirty.
In the Bin Laden raid Cairo, a Belgian Malinois, was with the SEALS during the compound raid.
Wearing special dog armour that can “withstand clouds of hot shrapnel”, Cairo was sent in to the compound to look for explosives and secret hiding spaces.
For his bravery, Cairo earned a meeting with President Barack Obama and was named Time’s Animal of the Year 2011.
Trump said al-Baghdadi “died like a dog” and was “crying, whimpering and screaming” during Saturday night’s raid on his hideout in Syria’s Idlib province.
How the President was able to give such detail could not be confirmed by General Milley when he was asked at Pentagon press briefing.
MOST READ IN WORLD NEWS
Al-Baghdadi was tracked to his lair after one of his security staff, who was also working for Kurdish intelligence, stole a pair of his underpants for a DNA sample to be taken.
He was tracked down just hours before he was about to disappear againand move to yet another secret location in northern Syria.
The ISIS chief has been buried at sea and was afforded Islamic burial rites, just as Osama bin Laden was after he was killed in Pakistan in 2011.
