Gen. Yahya Rasool says the military is still investigating whether al-Baghdadi was in the convoy that was struck.
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ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi does not appear to have been among the eight senior figures killed in Iraqi air strikes on their meeting at Karbala in western Iraq Sunday or the convoy heading there with Baghdadi.
A man purported to be the reclusive leader of the militant Islamic State Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has made what would be his first public appearance at a mosque in the center of Iraq’s second city, Mosul, according to a video recording posted on the Internet on July 5, 2014, in this still image taken from video.
He is enemy No. 1 in the fight against ISIS, and this summer, USA intelligence officials said they believed Baghdadi was in the area of Raqqa, Syria, the de facto capital of the self-declared Islamic State.
A top security officer in Anbar also said he had received reports showing Samarrai suffered injuries in the attack on his convoy and transferred to a hospital in Albu Kamal, a town near the Syrian border.
The Pentagon said it can’t confirm the report.
Among the slain officials who were reported to have been killed were heads of the jihadists’ militia and one known to be an adviser to al-Baghdadi.
Iraq’s security forces said in a statement Sunday that Iraqi warplanes had struck Baghdadi’s convoy as it was heading to an IS leadership meeting in Karabla, near the border with Syria. Interestingly, however, the social media mouthpieces of IS are responding to news of this attack not with denials about the attack or confirmations of al-Baghdadi’s survival but with displays of defiant bravado, claiming that the “caliphate” established by IS will outlive al-Baghdadi so the conceivable death of their leader will not impede the group’s progress or mission. It was also said that several of the leaders have been wounded.
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The unconfirmed bombing was reportedly carried out as Baghdadi was traveling to a meeting of Islamic State commanders.
