Iraqi Officials Say Airstrike Wounds ISIS leader; Pentagon Has No Comment

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

By Qassim Abdul-Zahra and Vivian Salama
Iraqi officials said Sunday that the head of the Islamic State group, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was wounded in an airstrike in western Anbar province. Pentagon officials said they had no immediate information on such an attack or on the militant leader being injured.

Iraq's Defence and Interior ministries both issued statements saying al-Baghdadi had been wounded, without elaborating, and the news was broadcast on state-run television Sunday night.

The reports came at a time when President Barack Obama said the U.S.-led coalition was in a position to start going on the offensive against the Islamic State militants.

Al-Baghdadi, believed to be in his early 40s, has a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head. Since taking the reins of the group in 2010, he has transformed it from a local branch of al-Qaida into an independent transnational military force.

He has positioned himself as perhaps the pre-eminent figure in the global jihadi community. His forces have seized large parts of Syria and Iraq, killed thousands of people, beheaded Westerners and drawn the U.S. troops and warplanes back into the region, where Washington is leading a campaign of airstrikes by a multinational coalition.

An Interior Ministry intelligence official told The Associated Press that al-Baghdadi was wounded by an Iraqi airstrike that came during a meeting Saturday with militants in the town of Qaim.

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Leader of ISIS — Dead Already?: US Tries To Assassinate Leadership of ISIS — ISIS Quiet On Whether Leader Was Killed

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi: Leader of the Islamic State.

By Ammar Karim and W.G. Dunlop
Iraq was on Sunday investigating whether Islamic State jihadist group chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed in air strikes by US-led coalition warplanes targeting the group's leaders.

The death of the elusive Baghdadi would be a major victory for the coalition of countries carrying out air strikes against IS and providing assistance to Iraqi forces fighting to regain large areas of Iraq that the jihadists have overrun.

The Leadership Structure of ISIS and the Islamic State

Reported by Jason Bellini and Reem Makhoul

The announcement of the strikes came after President Barack Obama unveiled plans to send up to 1,500 more US troops to Iraq to advise and train the country's forces, deepening Washington's commitment to the open-ended war against IS.

A senior Iraqi intelligence official said there was no "accurate information" on whether Baghdadi was killed but that authorities were investigating.

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Islamic State's Leader Wore 'Flashy Watch' During Sermon: Propaganda of Hypocrisy Used to Undermine Islamic State's Wealthy Jihadists

The Islamic State leader prompts confusion among his followers after appearing in his first public address wearing a wristwatch that resembles an expensive Omega or Rolex

Screen capture from YouTube video.

By Oliver Duggan
The emergence of the highly-secretive Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi from the shadow of Iraq’s sectarian crisis put a face to the threat of a global Islamic caliphate.

RELATED STORY: Iraq's Jihadis Looted $429m from City of Mosul's Central Bank — That Makes ISIS World's Richest Terror Force

The Islamic State leader spoke publicly for the first time at Mosul’s Great Mosque of Friday, an intervention in which he called on the world’s Muslims to “obey” him as “the leader who presides over you”.

But the self-anointed ‘Caliph Ibrahim’ also brought a touch of branding into the bloody conflict, with many who have seen the 20-minute sermon commenting on his bulky and expensive wristwatch.

Appearing in black robes and a turban in an attempt to evoke memories of the last Caliphs to rule from Baghdad, the jihadist broke with the tradition to sport an ill-fitting chrome watch with a dark face.

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