On Saturday, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed during a two-hour military operation carried out by US special forces, ending a long hunt for the ISIS leader.
During the raid, there were reports of a dog – part of the Army Delta force – being injured by electrocution, according to CNN. The dog – a Belgian Malinois – was taken to be treated for injuries, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley confirmed in a press conference on Monday, adding that they can't reveal any more details about the dog at this time.
"We're not releasing the name of the dog right now. The dog is still in theater. The dog, the K-9, the military working dog, performed a tremendous service as they all do in a variety of situations."
Not releasing the dog's name may seem odd – we'd hazard a guess the dog would respond to "here boy" – but Ron Aiello, president of the United States War Dogs Association, told The Guardian it's done as a security precaution in the same way that you wouldn't identify human troops who took part in the raid, adding "there could be retaliation".
As an extra bizarre post-script, it has briefly turned Donald Trump into a weird military edition of the We Rate Dogs account, after he tweeted out a "declassified" picture of the dog, and praised it copiously.
"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 tweeted.
People are, of course, praising the dog.
Although many other people are confused as to why he's happy tweeting potentially classified satelite imagery that could reveal US military satelite capabilities, but draws the line at revealing a dog's name.
Our favorite thing to come out of this (other than hopefully stemming ISIS activity, of course) is a new meme: People declassifying images of their dogs. Sit back and enjoy some of our favorite doggos, now that they have finally been declassified.
