Last month we reported that the Russians claimed they killed ISIS Caliph al-Baghdadi, but no one was able to confirm it.
Now a Syrian watchdog has said it is true, he’s dead:
TELEGRAPH – Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of Islamic State, is dead, according to a Syrian war monitor.
“(We have) confirmed information from leaders, including one of the first rank, in the Islamic State in the eastern countryside of Deir al-Zor,” Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. “We learned of it today but we do not know when he died or how.”
Russia’s defence ministry said last month that it may have killed Baghdadi when one of its air strikes hit a gathering of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) commanders on the outskirts of the Syrian city of Raqqa, but the US said it could not corroborate the death and Western and Iraqi officials have been sceptical.
Russia said the air strike took place on May 28 and claimed a number of Isil’s senior leadership, including Baghdadi, was killed. However they have so far offered no proof.
News of his death has not been independently verified by the Telegraph. The Pentagon said in a statement released today that the US has no information to corroborate reports.
Baghdadi’s death had been announced many times before but the Observatory has a track record of credible reporting on Syria’s civil war.
I would say this is cause for celebration, but I don’t really think even ISIS cares all that much. They will continue to operate as though he were still alive.
Iraq on Monday declared “total victory” over the Islamic State group in Mosul, retaking full control of the country’s second-largest city three years after it was seized by extremists bent on building a global caliphate.
“This great feast day crowned the victories of the fighters and the Iraqis for the past three years,” said Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, flanked by his senior military leadership at a small base on the edge of the Old City, where the final battles for Mosul unfolded.
Al-Abadi alluded to the brutality of the battle for Mosul — Iraq’s longest yet in the fight against IS — saying the triumph had been achieved “by the blood of our martyrs.”
While Mosul fell to IS in a matter of days in 2014, the campaign to retake the city lasted nearly nine months. The fight, closely backed by airstrikes from the U.S.-led coalition, brought an end to the extremists’ so-called territorial caliphate, but has also left thousands dead, entire neighborhoods in ruins and nearly 900,000 displaced from their homes.
Shortly after al-Abadi’s speech, the coalition congratulated him on the victory but noted that parts of the Old City still “must be back-cleared of explosive devices and possible ISIS fighters in hiding.”