ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi travels in east Syria with tight-knit group
ISIS group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is hiding in eastern Syria and moves around with only a small group of followers, including one of his sons, an Iraqi intelligence official said Wednesday.
ISIS retains territory in the desert plains along the Iraqi frontier despite losing the vast bulk of its cross-border “caliphate” to various military offensives.
The senior Iraqi official said Baghdadi was in the Hajin, Shaddadi, Suwar and Markadah areas and “travels accompanied by four or five people, including his son and son-in-law”.
“His movements are discreet and he never travels in a convoy,” the official said on condition of anonymity.
Originally from Iraq, Baghdadi has been dubbed the “most wanted man on the planet” and the United States is offering a $25 million reward for his capture.
The intelligence official said the noose was closing around the militant leader after Iraqi forces captured five top IS commanders in an unprecedented raid into war-torn Syria on March 24.
“Officers from Iraqi intelligence entered Syrian territory and gained access to the zones controlled by IS,” he said.
The five men had featured in IS execution videos filmed while the group ruled over vast swathes of Iraq, the official said.
One of those detained, former Syrian anti-government fighter Saddam al-Jamal, allegedly confessed to Iraqi forces that he had supplied IS with arms stolen from the Syrian army.
The official said 39 ISIS fighters had been killed in cross-border air raids by Iraqi forces in Syria over the past few weeks and that the group had seen a “sharp decrease” in numbers.
Iraq’s interior ministry said in February that Baghdadi was being treated at a field hospital for wounds sustained in an earlier air strike.
In mid-2017, Russia said it had probably killed Baghdadi in a late May air raid near Raqa in Syria, but later said it was still trying to verify his fate.
In September, an American military chief said the jihadist chief was still alive and probably hiding in eastern Syria’s Euphrates Valley.
-
Iraqi intelligence reveals where ISIS’s Baghdadi believed to be hiding
Iraqi officials speaking to Fox News on Sunday said that ISIS chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is still at large, and is being actively hunted.“The ... Middle East -
ISIS’s Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is ‘alive but wounded’ in Syria hideout
An Iraqi interior ministry official said ISIS's head Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is alive and being treated at a field hospital in Syria after being wounded ... Middle East -
Hezbollah media unit: ISIS leader Baghdadi reported in Syrian town
A Hezbollah-run media unit said on Friday the ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was reported to have been in the Syrian town of Albu Kamal during the ... Middle East -
Did ISIS chief Baghdadi flee from Iraq to Syria in taxi?
An Iraqi news agency reported that ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has fled from Iraq in a yellow taxi towards Syria now that his life is under ... Variety