London: Chief of terror group Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has been wounded in an air strike by US-led coalition forces on one of the group’s command headquarters close to the Syrian border in Iraq.
According to an Express UK report, quoting Iraqi news channel Al Sumariya TV, local sources said that Baghdadi and other leaders of the militant group were wounded on Thursday in country’s Nineveh province during a bombing raid by coalition forces.
"The planes of the international coalition yesterday (June 9) bombed a location where there is a base of ISIS members along the border area between Iraq and Syria, 65 kilometres west of Nineveh. The attack was carried out on the basis of precise intelligence information that led to strike its own that site," Express UK quoted an Iraqi source as saying.
The area is one of the group’s strongholds, it said, adding that "Baghdadi and the other ISIS leaders arrived in Iraq from Syria with a convoy of cars".
A spokesman for the US-led coalition said that he had seen the reports but had nothing to confirm this at this time.
In recent years there have been a number of reports of Baghdadis injury, and even death, but none have been confirmed.
Baghdadi was seriously wounded by an airstrike on March 18, 2015, that killed the three other men he was travelling with. He was said to be receiving treatment for spinal injuries after being wounded in that strike.
The injury left the terror chief incapacitated, with some claiming at the time that his injuries meant he would never again resume command.
In 2011 the US State Department named Baghdadi as a terrorist and offered up to USD 10 million for information leading to his capture or death.
Baghdadi became the leader of the militant group in 2010 but it was only in 2014 that ISIS declared the establishment of a "caliphate" - a successor of past Islamic empires in its territory in Syria and Iraq.
With PTI Inputs
