Rot in Hell, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

by NYPost editorial board

Even as he killed himself, ISIS chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi took three last innocent lives — slaughtering three children with his suicide vest late Saturday night after being cornered by US special forces.

May he rot in hell.

A rapist and author of countless atrocities, al-Baghdadi had taken refuge in a part of Syria controlled by al Qaeda, from which he’d broken years ago when he founded his so-called Islamic State.

This is a big win for America and the civilized world — a decisive blow to the once-potent extremist group that has now been routed all across the swaths of Iraq and Syria that it once controlled.

It’s also a victory for President Trump, who took office vowing to crush ISIS — and has.

Al-Baghdadi “died like a dog, he died like a coward,” Trump said Sunday morning. US forces had had him under surveillance for weeks before the president gave the go-ahead for a mission to capture or kill.

The president thanked the governments of Russia, Turkey, Syria and Iraq, as well as Kurdish forces, for their assistance, which apparently helped the op go off like a charm, with no American lives lost, but multiple ISIS ones.

The raid also captured considerable information that should help run down scattered remnants and assets of the terrorist group across Syria and Iraq.

Something calling itself the Islamic State may survive, as has al Qaeda. To prevent any ISIS revival, Washington will need to keep Iran-aligned extremists from again radicalizing the region’s Sunnis, as Tehran’s pawns did after President Barack Obama pulled the last US forces out of Iraq.

Indeed, to check Iran and protect the Syrian Kurds who helped smash ISIS in Syria, Trump is looking to deploy some US forces in the oil-rich areas of northeast Syria, a part of the Kurdish heartland, which seems a wise precaution.

Washington can’t force peace on the region, but it can stand by its friends and against its enemies — as well as hunting down the worst vermin, like al-Baghdadi.