ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is reportedly still alive and hiding in Syria, despite Russian reports of his death.
“Baghdadi is definitely alive. He is not dead. We have information that he is alive. We believe 99 percent he is alive,” Lahur Talabany, a top Kurdish counter-terrorism official told Reuters in an interview on Monday.
“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.”
Recall, Russia had claimed it killed the elusive leader, who has not been seen in public since declaring ISIS’s so-called caliphate from the Iraqi city of Mosul in July 2014, in an air strike on a meeting of senior ISIS commanders near Raqqa on May 28.
Last week it was reported that al-Baghdadi, the world’s most wanted man, was killed in an airstrike in the Iraqi province of Nineveh, according to Daily Star.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed it “had information” from “top ISIS commanders” that al-Baghdadi was dead.
However, Western and Iraqi officials could not confirm either of the claims.
"Our approach is we assume he's alive until it's proven otherwise, and right now I can't prove it otherwise," Jim Mattis, US Defense Secretary, was cited by The Telegraph as saying last week. "We'll go after him until he's gone.”
Abu Ali Basri, the director general of the Iraq’s intelligence and counter-terrorism office in the ministry of interior, agreed Baghdadi was still alive and in Syria.
According to him, Iraq’s Soquor intelligence agency believes the jihadi chief is hiding out in Syria.
Baghdadi is not thought to have been in the Syrian city of Raqqa, which has been heavily targeted by the US-led coalition, for some time and is believed to have been moving between ISIS territory along the Syria-Iraq border.
The Telegraph was reportedly told by a resident of the village of Jdaidet al-Okaibat on the outskirts of the ISIS-controlled eastern Syrian city of Deir Ezzor that he appeared on June 24 for Eid al-Fitr prayers, which mark the end of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan.
He claimed a group of around 200 people took part in the prayers, led by Baghdadi, who looked “fit and well”.
