Islamic State leader al-Baghdadi wounded in airstrike
November 10, 2014 09:04
Iraqi officials today said that an airstrike wounded the leader of the Islamic State group, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Pentagon officials said they had no immediate information on such a strike.
However, Iraq's defence and interior ministries issued statements saying al-Baghdadi had been wounded, without elaborating.
An interior ministry intelligence official told Associated Press that al-Baghdadi was hit during a meeting Saturday with militants in the town of Qaim in Iraq's western Anbar province.
The official, citing informants within the militant group, said the strike wounded al-Baghdadi. A senior Iraqi military official also said he learned in operational meetings that al-Baghdadi had been wounded.
Both officials said the operation was carried out by Iraqi security forces. Neither knew the extent of al-Baghdadi's apparent injuries.
Both spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential material.
Al-Baghdadi, an ambitious Iraqi militant believed to be in his early 40s, has a USD 10 million US bounty on his head.
Since taking the reins of the group in 2010, he has transformed it from a local branch of al-Qaida into an independent transnational military force, positioning himself as perhaps the pre-eminent figure in the global jihadi community.
The reclusive leader is purported to have made only one public appearance, delivering a sermon at a mosque in Iraq's second-largest city of Mosul, as seen in a video posted online in June.
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