Subject: BREAKING: Al-Baghdadi Is Dead ISIS Wed Jun 15, 2016 12:50 am
BREAKING: Al-Baghdadi Is Dead ISIS
Has ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi been killed in US air strike? Reports say he has died in Raqqa but no confirmation from coalition
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has reportedly been killed in air strike in Raqqa
If confirmed it would be a huge blow to ISIS, as he leads the terror group
It comes only days after a man supporting ISIS killed 49 people in Orlando
But the U.S. and their coalition partners are yet to confirm if he is dead
By CHRIS SUMMERS FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 06:09 EST, 14 June 2016 | UPDATED: 11:34 EST, 14 June 2016
ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has reportedly been killed in a US air strike in Raqqa.
His death, reported by the respected Turkish daily Yenis Safak, would be a major blow for the jihadists and comes only days after 49 innocent people were killed in an Orlando nightclub by a man pledging allegiance to ISIS.
But there have previously been reports that al-Baghdadi, who proclaimed himself caliph of all Muslims two years ago, has been killed or wounded, which turned out to be untrue.
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Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS, is pictured addressing Muslim worshippers at a mosque in Mosul
The Abna24 website said al-Baghdadi had been killed on Sunday morning by an air strike in Syria.
However, there has been no confirmation of his death by the US or any other coalition powers, who have been targeting the terror group in Syria and Iraq.
A Pentagon spokesman told MailOnline they were not aware of any 'high value targets' having been killed.
Baghdadi was born as Ibrahim Awwad Ibrahim al-Badri, in 1971 in Samarra, Iraq, to a lower-middle class Sunni family.
His tribe claimed to be descended from the Prophet Muhammad.
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has been the leader of the jihadist militant organisation of ISIS
As a youth Baghdadi was a meticulous observer of religious law and could recite the Koran from cover to cover.
He then rose from obscurity to lead the world's most infamous and feared terror group, reviving the organisation's fortunes as it launched its sickening offensive across Syria and Iraq.
But he still continues to shun the spotlight for an aura of mystery that adds to his appeal and his lack of public appearances means he still has a unprecedented $10million bounty on his head.
The situation is in direct contrast to the likes of Osama bin Laden, who regularly appeared in videos sprouting hate messages and was internationally known long before 9/11.
Oppositely, Baghdadi's only appearance came during a slick propoganda video last summer, when he led a sermon in a mosque in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.
The video - which showed a man with a black and grey beard wearing a black robe and matching turban - came after the group captured Iraq's second largest city, a terrifying moment which highlighted how quickly the terror group was gaining territory.
An Iraqi intelligence report indicates that Baghdadi - who it says has a PhD in Islamic studies and was a professor at Tikrit University - also married a second woman, with whom he had another son.
Baghdadi apparently joined the insurgency that erupted after the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, at one point spending time in a U.S military prison in the country's south.
But he did not swear allegiance to the leader of the al-Qaeda network, Zawahiri, who had urged ISIS to focus on Iraq and leave Syria to al-Nusra.
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ISIS members wave flags as they parade through their stronghold of Raqqa in Syria, where Baghdadi has reportedly been killed in an airstrike
Baghdadi and his fighters openly defied the al-Qaeda chief, leading some commentators to believe he now holds higher prestige among many Islamist militants.
As well as the uncertainty surrounding his true identity, his whereabouts are also unclear. Although there were reports he was in Raqqa in Syria, - the ISIS stronghold - those reports are unconfirmed.
In the past year, Baghdadi has been reported wounded multiple times. Last year there were two reports that Baghdadi had been wounded in air strikes, but they turned out to be inaccurate.
He also escaped death in December when US jets attacked a two-car convoy on the outskirts of Mosul.
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Subject: Analysis: ISIS leader al-Baghdadi is living on borrowed time Thu Jun 16, 2016 8:47 am
Analysis: ISIS leader al-Baghdadi is living on borrowed time
Sooner or later intelligence will lead to a successful attack by an American drone or plane and the operational cycle will be closed.
Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi. (photo credit:REUTERS)
Information released Wednesday on the demise of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the founder of ISIS, was premature, and not for the first time. In the past year, there have been at least three false reports that al-Baghdadi was killed during US airstrikes.
Every hour that al-Baghdadi continues to live, he is essentially part of "the walking dead." Sooner or later intelligence will lead to a successful attack by an American drone or plane and the operational cycle will be closed.
Al-Baghdadi is living on borrowed time. He knows it, as do his senior commanders, who in the past weeks have been on the defensive, losing outposts, villages, cities and territories. The Caliphate understands that its territorial control is ending. The Iraqi army, along with Shi'a militias under the guidance of Iranian al-Quds force commander, General Qassam Sulimani, are besieging the city of Fallujah in Iraq and it's just a matter of time until it falls. The Syrian army from the West is closing in on the city of Raqqa, capital of the Caliphate, and Kurdish forces are advancing from the North.
As ISIS control lessens, the despair and urge to commit terror attacks is strengthened: to explode car bombs in Damascus and Baghdad, to enhance their influence and induction of young radical Muslims in the West. Sooner or later ISIS will go back to being what it was when it began: a terror organization that is an off-shoot of al-Qaida that operates as a murder machine more dangerous than the original ever was.
With all the differences between them, the two attacks this past week - Orlando and Paris - indicate such a direction. The terror attacks of the past few months in Brussels and Paris, along with dozens of other such attacks that defense forces in Western Europe were successful in preventing, all carry the fingerprint of ISIS. It is difficult to pinpoint a common denominator between them all.
In some of the cases, networks of Syrian and Iraqi war 'veterans' were organized and directed from Raqqa. In other cases, individuals or couples declared their allegiance to ISIS and al-Baghdadi, as in Orlando, but the real motives were from family/personal distress or religious radicalization and hate for the West.
Most of the Western terror attacks in the past few years, especially those in Orlando and Paris, exposed the weak points and loopholes of the intelligence and law enforcement communities. At least some of the terrorists were 'checked and vetted,' in other words, known to local police and authorities. Some appeared on lists of known dangerous Islamists, some were even arrested and questioned, yet eventually fell through the cracks in the system. This comes from negligence and from an absence of awareness. Even the world's best security forces cannot always cover all potential suspects, certainly not without harming important democratic western values, such as human rights, privacy, and due process of the law.
Slowly, the West is learning through a difficult path of sacrifices how to fight against murderous Islamic terrorism.
Maybe it would be possible to take short cuts if there was a higher awareness and decisiveness, however just as the West succeeded in reducing the danger of al-Qaida and its leader Osama Bin Laden, it will succeed, eventually, in the struggle against ISIS and al-Baghdadi.
However, no one should deceive themselves that the idea itself - Holy Jihad against the Christian West and all infidels - will disappear from the world.
Subject: BREAKING: Al-Baghdadi Is Dead ISIS 
Wed Jun 15, 2016 12:50 am
