{"id":73342,"date":"2017-07-13T09:00:47","date_gmt":"2017-07-13T13:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=73342"},"modified":"2017-07-13T08:48:39","modified_gmt":"2017-07-13T12:48:39","slug":"is-al-baghdadi-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=73342","title":{"rendered":"Is al-Baghdadi dead?"},"content":{"rendered":"

There has been speculation lately that the leader of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed recently. That’s been reported before, but rumors are swirling that region of the world now, according to Reuters<\/a> which reports that the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has “confirmed information” in that regard;<\/p>\n

Russia’s Defence Ministry said in June that it might have killed Baghdadi when one of its air strikes hit a gathering of Islamic State commanders on the outskirts of the Syrian city of Raqqa. But Washington said it could not corroborate the death and Western and Iraqi officials have been skeptical.<\/p>\n

Reuters could not independently verify Baghdadi’s death.<\/p>\n

“(We have) confirmed information from leaders, including one of the first rank who is Syrian, in the Islamic State in the eastern countryside of Deir al-Zor,” said Rami Abdulrahman, the director of the British-based war monitoring group.<\/p>\n

In Iraq, U.S. Army Colonel Ryan Dillon, spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State, said he could not confirm the news.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

From New York Magazine<\/a>;<\/p>\n

The U.S. military and other analysts made clear their skepticism. The U.S. confirmed that Russia did conduct a strike in that area on that date, but as to al-Baghdadi\u2019s fate, a Pentagon spokesman said: \u201cWe have no information to corroborate those reports.\u201d The circumstances surrounding his alleged death were also questionable. It struck experts as unlikely that so many high-level ISIS leaders would all meet together in the middle of a military hot zone, making themselves vulnerable to a targeted strike. And, of course, al-Baghdadi has a reputation for getting \u201ckilled\u201d or critically injured, over and over again.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Politico<\/a> reports;<\/p>\n

Army Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend didn’t go so far as to say that he believes Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is dead, but he did acknowledge in a briefing with Pentagon reporters that he has not seen evidence that he is still around.<\/p>\n

“I really don’t know. … I don’t have reason to believe that he’s alive. I don’t have proof of life,” Townsend said….<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well, alive or dead, at least he’s keeping journalists busy with something other than Russian connections to President Trump.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There has been speculation lately that the leader of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was … Is al-Baghdadi dead?<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-terror-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=73342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73342\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=73342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=73342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=73342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}