IS leader Al-Baghdadi reportedly wounded in Iraqi Al-Qa’im
IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was seriously wounded by an Iraqi airstrike in the city of Al-Qa’im near the Syrian border, al-Hayat newspaper reports, according to Sputnik News.
“His survival was a miracle,” the newspaper writes citing Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi.
The prime minister also added that Baghdadi has since “moved to another location.”
Earlier it was reported that the terrorist leader had been wounded in an airstrike in Anbar province in November. The Guardian reported that coalition forces had carried out an airstrike on a convoy of vehicles, which killed a senior aide to the IS leader, Abdur Rahman al-Athaee. However, an audio recording released later appears to be confirmation that the leader himself escaped the attack.
Al-Baghdadi made his only previous public appearance in July, in a video taken in Mosul’s Great Mosque, where he issued a call for Muslims to join him to “make jihad.” According the Telegraph, he told those congregated: “I am the wali (leader) who presides over you,” and hailed what he said to be the victory of jihad and the restoration of the caliphate.