Iraqi Official: Baghdadi is Being Treated in a Field Hospital in Syria

An Iraqi Interior Ministry official states that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State group or ISIS, is still alive and is currently being treated in a field hospital due to injuries sustained from an airstrike. The state newspaper Al-Sabah reported, citing Abu Ali al-Basri, head of the Counter-Terrorism Office of the Iraqi Interior Ministry, that Baghdadi was transferred to the hospital due to 'broken bones and serious injuries to his leg and inability to stand.' The Iraqi official also mentioned that Baghdadi is still alive and is located in a desert area in Syria near the Iraqi border. He added, 'With information and evidence received from our source who is deep within this terrorist group, we learned that the criminal Baghdadi is still alive with the help of his accomplices.' Al-Sabah further reported that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is in poor health and suffers from diabetes. In recent years, there have been multiple reports of Baghdadi's death, but they were later proven to be false. In this regard, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported last July that the ISIS leader was dead. Iraqi security officials released a list last week titled 'Internationally Wanted Terrorist Leaders,' with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi at the top. The ISIS leader, born in 1971, is officially named 'Ibrahim Awad Ibrahim Ali al-Badri al-Samarrai.' The Islamic State group rapidly seized large areas of western Iraq, particularly the city of Mosul, in 2014, where Baghdadi declared a caliphate. This self-proclaimed caliphate, which included Syria and Iraq, was severely weakened in July of this year with the loss of Mosul and later lost its main base in Syria, the city of Raqqa, in the fall. Since 2014, the United States has led a coalition of Western and regional countries in extensive airstrikes against this group, and ISIS, which has suffered heavy defeats in the past year, has almost lost its controlled areas in Iraq and Syria.