ISIS chief said to be in retaken town

But activists say report from Syrian military-tied outlet is meant to cover losses

BEIRUT — The Islamic State militant group’s leader may be holed up in an Islamic State pocket in the eastern town of Boukamal, a media outlet linked to the Syrian military said Friday, referring to the town that government forces and their allies recaptured this week before losing parts of it later.

The claim was denied by Syrian opposition activists who said the government is trying to make up for losses it suffered in Boukamal when large parts were retaken by the extremists Friday.

The whereabouts of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi are not known, and if he is killed or captured it would be another blow for the organization that has lost more than 90 percent of lands it once controlled in Iraq and Syria, where the group declared a caliphate in June 2014.

Al-Baghdadi’s whereabouts and the question of whether he is dead or alive have been a continuing source of mystery and confusion.

The Syrian Central Military Media said that, as Syrian troops and their allies conducted search operations in Boukamal, they “got the information” that al-Baghdadi might be “in one of the pockets” in the town. The report did not elaborate on how the soldiers heard about al-Baghdadi or what they were doing about the information.

Rami Abdurrahman, who heads the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group, and Omar Abu Laila, a Europe-based opposition activist originally from Syria’s eastern province of Deir elZour, both denied the report that al-Baghdadi is in Boukamal.

Boukamal, the Islamic State’s last stronghold in Syria, was taken Thursday after Islamic State militants withdrew from it. Abdurrahman said the Islamic State launched a counteroffensive on Boukamal, capturing more than 40 percent of the town, mostly its northern neighborhoods.

“The fighting is ongoing, now close to the town’s center,” Abdurrahman said, adding that when the militants withdrew from Boukamal on Thursday it was a trap they set to hit back at government forces and their allies.

Abu Laila said Islamic State fighters control most of Boukamal, adding that government claims that al-Baghdadi is in the town are to cover for their losses.

In September, al-Baghdadi released an audio recording in which he urged his followers to burn their enemies everywhere and target “media centers of the infidels.” It was his first purported audio in nearly a year.

Al-Baghdadi has only appeared in public once in 2014 in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.

Russian officials said in June that there was a “high probability” that al-Baghdadi was killed in a Russian airstrike on the outskirts of the Syrian city of Raqqa, the group’s declared capital that it lost last month. U.S. officials later said they believed he was still alive.

Al-Baghdadi is believed to be in the Islamic State’s dwindling territory in eastern Syria. Opposition activists also say he is likely somewhere in the wide desert that stretches toward Iraq.