Isis’s Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi alive and ‘hiding in Syria’

Jihadi leader reportedly wounded in air strike and suffering poor mental health

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
Burning effigy of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
(Image credit: Getty images)

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is reportedly alive and being treated in Syria for injuries sustained in an air raid, having temporarily relinquished control of the Islamic State terror group.

“We have irrefutable information and documents from sources within the terrorist organisation that al-Baghdadi is still alive and hiding,” the director general of Iraq’s intelligence and counterterrorism office, Abu Ali al-Basri, told Iraqi government-run newspaper Al-Sabah. The jihadist is believed to be in the desert on the Syrian side of the Syria-Iraq border northeast of Deir Ezzor province, Basri added.

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