ISIL leader can’t move after spinal injury: Report

ISIL Takfiri terrorist leader Ibrahim al-Samarrai aka Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi who is said to have been wounded in a US-led coalition attack is reportedly unable to move due to his injury.

“Sources tell us Baghdadi is still alive, but still unable to move due to spinal injury sustained in the March airstrike,” the Business Insider website quoted Kareem Shaheen at The Guardian as saying in a Tuesday message posted on Twitter.

Another Guardian reporter also said according to his sources Baghdadi is not dead and is receiving treatment from doctors of Mosul.

In an earlier report, an unnamed source said that Baghdadi was hiding in the town of al-Ba’aj in Iraq’s northern Nineveh province, adding that he had chosen the place because he knew the US forces did not have much cover there.

The source also confirmed that Baghdadi was seriously injured during a US-led coalition attack in March and noted even though his wounds were initially life threatening, he had slowly recovered from his injuries.

“He has not, however, resumed day-to-day control of the organization,” the source stated.

The report, however, has not been confirmed by US officials. “We have nothing to confirm this report,” said a Pentagon spokesman.

Another recent report quoted Hisham al-Hashimi, an Iraqi government adviser, as saying that Abu Alaa Afri, the deputy of Baghdadi and a former physics teacher, has been appointed as the Takfiri group’s temporary leader.

Hashimi further said that Afri is more important than Baghdadi in the eyes of the Takfiri group’s leadership. Afri will assume leadership of ISIL if Baghdadi dies, he highlighted.

ISIL launched an offensive in Iraq in June last year and took control of Mosul, the country’s second-largest city, before sweeping through parts of the country’s heartland.

MR/NN/AS

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