DHAKA: Iraqi security forces say they have struck the convoy of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State (IS) of Iraq and Syria group, in an air strike near the country’s border with Syria.

‘The Iraqi air force carried out a heroic operation targeting the convoy of the criminal terrorist Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi,’ Iraq’s security forces said in a statement on Sunday, reports Al Jazeera.

‘His health status is unknown,’ it said.

Pentagon officials told Al Jazeera that they could not ‘corroborate or confirm the Iraqi government claim of striking or killing Baghadi at this point’.

Iraqi security sources have previously claimed several times that Baghdadi had been injured or killed in strikes but the claims were either never verified or later denied.

The army statement said Iraqi aircraft struck Baghdadi’s convoy as it was ‘moving towards Karabla to attend a meeting of the Daesh terrorist leaders’.

Daesh is an Arabic acronym for the IS group, which last year proclaimed a caliphate straddling Iraqi and Syria.

Karabla is located on the river Euphrates barely five kilometers from the border with Syria. The statement did not make clear when the strike was carried out.

The statement said the operation was conducted in coordination with Iraq’s interior ministry intelligence services and the joint operation command centre that includes military advisers from the US-led coalition.

BDST: 2205 HRS, OCT 11, 2015
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