Baghdad, Feb. 13 (TNS): ISIL’s leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is alive and being treated at a medical facility in northeastern Syria after being severely wounded in an air raid, a senior Iraqi official said.
The head of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) sustained serious wounds to his legs during air raids, Abu Ali al-Basri, Iraq’s intelligence and counterterrorism department chief, was quoted by the government-run al-Sabah daily as saying.
“We have irrefutable information and documents from sources within the terrorist organisation that al-Baghdadi is still alive and hiding with the help of his collaborators,” al-Basri said.
Al-Baghdadi – one of the world’s most-wanted men with a $25m US bounty on his head – is currently in Syria’s Jazeera desert, west of Deir Az Zor, he said.
He suffers from “injuries, diabetes and fractures to the body and legs that prevent him from walking without assistance”, said al-Basri.
