Better if IS boss Al-Baghdadi was taken alive: Corbyn

Boris Johnson condemns Jeremy Corbyn for wanting Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi captured alive.

Jeremy Corbyn has been slammed for suggesting that it would have been preferable for the Islamic State chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to have been arrested, rather than killed.

Boris Johnson has attacked Jeremy Corbyn, saying his views were “naive to the point of being dangerous’’, after the Labour leader insisted that it would have been preferable for the evil Islamic State chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to have been arrested, rather than killed.

Al-Baghdadi was responsible for a series of horrific beheadings and killings of westerners and also Syrians who failed to follow a strict version of Islam as he tried to establish the Islamic State caliphate.

READ MORE: Latest news and analysis on the election and Brexit | Inside story — How the US got Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

But Mr Corbyn told London radio: “if it had been possible to arrest him (Al-Baghadi) that would have been the right thing to do’’. Al-Baghdadi ignited a suicide vest killing himself and two of his children when crack US forces cornered him in an underground tunnel of his secret compound in Barisha in northwest Syria in late October.

Donald Trump said soon after that Al-Baghdadi, who inspired mass killings in the West such as the Nice truck attack, the Berlin Christmas market attack and terror attacks in Manchester, London Bridge and Westminster, was “whimpering and crying and screaming” as military dogs were unleashed just before he detonated the deadly suicide explosion.

Britain's Prime Minister and Conservative Party leader Boris Johnson, left, and Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, right.

Mr Johnson, answering journalists’ questions after delivering a key note Conservative party speech inside an electric car factory, said: “I think it is very important when you look at the threats this country faces that we are realistic and be strong against those threats. Corbyn’s approach is naive to the point of being dangerous.’’

In 2015 Mr Corbyn told Iranian television that the killing of the world’s most wanted man, Osama Bin Laden was “a tragedy upon a tragedy’’ and that Bin Laden should have been put on trial. He has also spoken out against having a nuclear deterrent.

The security minister Brandon Lewis said Corbyn’s comments shows an “inability to stand up to people who reject our values”.

He added: “Every time [Corbyn] is given the opportunity to take the side of this country’s enemies he does so.”

The Tory party has also referenced how Mr Corbyn sided with the Kremlin over the Novichok poisoning attack in Salisbury.