text: U.S. officials have said the body of Islamic State group chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was buried at sea, as fresh details surfaced about the U.S. special forces operation that led to his death over the weekend.
  Syrian Kurds claimed to be a key source of the intelligence that led Americans to Baghdadi after years of tracking the man behind a five-year reign of terror across much of Iraq and Syria. And an unnamed U.S. military dog became an unlikely hero of the raid, incurring injuries as it chased Baghdadi down a dead-end tunnel underneath his northwestern Syria hideout, where the jihadist blew himself and three children up with a suicide vest.
  The U.S. military basked in success on Monday after eliminating the founder and spiritual guide of the Islamic State group, capping a years-long campaign to crush the Sunni Muslim extremist organization that had at one point created a “caliphate” the size of England.
  “His death marks a devastating blow to the remnants of [I.S.],” said Defense Secretary Mark Esper. He praised the nearly hundred-strong force that helicoptered to the rural compound in the Idlib region of Syria in a complex mission that required coordination with Russians, Kurds, Turks and President Bashar al-Assad’s regime to prevent U.S. aircraft from being fired upon.