- Update: He was injured
Iraq’s military claims its air force struck a convoy in western Anbar province that included ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
The fate of al-Baghdadi is unknown, the military statement said.
“The Iraqi airforce carried out a heroic operation by striking al-Baghdadi’s convoy while he on his way to attend a meeting with senior ISIS leaders in Karabelah,” the statement said.
The site of the meeting was also struck and several ISIS leaders were killed and wounded, the statement said.
Claims that al-Baghdadi has been hit in airstrikes have been made twice over the past year. In November, Iraqi officials said he had been wounded in an airstrike. In March, Iraq’s Interior Ministry said the Iraqi air force wounded al-Baghdadi in an airstrike on the Iraqi town of Al-Qaem.
Each time, audio recordings of al-Baghdadi showed up on social media within days after the airstrikes.
He is enemy No. 1 in the fight against ISIS, and this summer, U.S. intelligence officials said they believed al-Baghdadi was in the area of Raqqa, Syria, the de facto capital of the self-declared Islamic State. He was also still in charge of ISIS’ operations, they said. CNN