IS leader Baghdadi almost certainly alive: Kurdish official
SULAIMANIA (IRAQ): A top Kurdish counter-terrorism official said on Monday he was 99 per cent sure that IS leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi was alive and located south of the Syrian city of Raqqa, despite reports that he had been killed.
“Baghdadi is definitely alive. He is not dead. We have information that he is alive. We believe 99 per cent he is alive,” Lahur Talabany told Reuters in an interview.
“Don’t forget his roots go back to Al Qaeda days in Iraq. He was hiding from security services. He knows what he is doing.” The secretive IS leader has frequently been reported killed or wounded since he climbed up to the pulpit of a mosque in Mosul in 2014 and declared a caliphate with himself the leader of all Muslims.
After leading his co-militants on a sweep through northern Iraq, Baghdadi attempted to create a self-sustaining modern-day ca- liphate in parts of Iraq and Syria.
He is now a man on the run, but still a cunning foe, said Talabany, who as part of the international coalition against IS has been at the forefront of efforts to track Baghdadi down. “He is not an easy figure. He has years of experience in hiding and getting away from the security services,” Talabany said. “The territory they control right now, still to this day, is very tough territory. It is still not the end of the game for ISIL (IS). Even though they have lost almost all of Mosul and they are getting ready to lose Raqqa as well.”