Russia's
Defense Ministry said on Friday it was checking information that a Russian air
strike near the Syrian city of Raqqa may have killed Islamic State leader Abu
Bakr
al-Baghdadi in late May.
The air
strike was launched after the Russian forces in Syria received intelligence that
a meeting of Islamic State leaders was being planned, the ministry said in a
statement posted on its Facebook page.
"On May
28, after drones were used to confirm the information on the place and time of
the meeting of IS leaders, between 00:35 and 00:45, Russian air forces launched
a strike on the command point where the leaders were located," the
statement said.
"According
to the information which is now being checked via various channels, also
present at the meeting was Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who was
eliminated as a result of the strike," the ministry said.
The U.S.-led
coalition fighting Islamic State said it could not confirm the Russian report
that Baghdadi may have been killed.
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
Russian defense ministry statement 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 statement
said.
The United
States was informed in advance about the place and time of the strike, the
Russian military said.
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.
Born Ibrahim
al-Samarrai, Baghdadi is a 46-year-old Iraqi who broke away from al Qaeda in
2013, two years after the capture and killing of the group's leader Osama bin
Laden.
Rami
Abdulrahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, cast doubt on
the report Baghdadi may have been killed. He said that according to his
information, Baghdadi was located in another part of Syria at the end of May.
“The
information is that as of the end of last month Baghdadi was in Deir al-Zor, in
the area between Deir al-Zor and Iraq, in Syrian territory,” he said by phone.
Questioning
what Baghdadi would have been doing in that location, he said: “Is it
reasonable that Baghdadi would put himself between a rock and a hard place of
the (U.S.-led) coalition and Russia?”
REUTERS*
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