The U.S.-led coalition battling Islamic State said on Friday it could not confirm a Russian report that the leader of the jihadist group, AbuBakr Al-Baghdadi, may have been killed in a Russian air strike in Syria.
“We cannot confirm,” coalition spokesman Col. John Dorrian told Reuters.
The Russian defense ministry earlier said it was seeking confirmation that al-Baghdadi had been killed in a strike in late May near the Syrian city of Raqqa.
The U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State said it could not confirm the Russian report that Baghdadi may have been killed.
The Russian defence ministry in a statement said that the strike is believed to have killed several other senior leaders of the group, as well as around 30 field commanders and up to 300 of their personal guards.
The ministry said the IS leaders had gathered at the command center, in a southern suburb of Raqqa, to discuss possible routes for the militants’ retreat from the city.
The Russian military said the U.S. was informed in advance about the place and time of the strike.
Islamic State fighters are close to defeat in the twin capitals of the group’s territory, Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria.
Russian forces support the Syrian government which is fighting against Islamic State mainly from the west, while a U.S.-led coalition supports Iraqi government forces fighting against Islamic State from the east.
The last public video footage of Baghdadi shows him dressed in black clerical robes declaring his caliphate from the pulpit of Mosul’s medieval Grand al-Nuri mosque back in 2014.
(Reuters/NAN)