The Pentagon says it has no evidence to support the latest round of reports that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi may have been killed in a U.S. airstrike in Raqqa, Syria.
“I can only tell you we have not seen any information that would corroborate that,” Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis said Tuesday.
A report by conservative Turkish daily newspaper Yenis Safak was widely circulated on social media, before being debunked as likely being based on a fake statement.
It’s not the first time al-Baghdadi has been reported to have been killed or gravely wounded in an airstrike, but the U.S. has never confirmed his demise.
While the U.S. won’t say Baghdadi is dead, it also can’t say for sure he’s alive.
“We haven’t heard from Baghdadi since late last year,” White House special envoy Brett McGurk told reporters during a briefing on anti-Islamic State operations Friday.
“It is Ramadan. He purports to be ‘the caliph,’ that’s what he calls himself. And so you would think he’d be coming out with a statement to his so-called followers. But we have not heard from him. But we presume that he’s still alive,” said McGurk, President Obama’s special envoy to the anti-Islamic State coalition.
McGurk says senior or mid-level Islamic State leaders are being killed by the U.S.-led coalition on average one every three days, with 100 eliminated over the last few months.
“The leaders we’re taking out, we are getting closer and closer and closer to the very core,” McGurk said.
The U.S. says the relentless targeting of the Islamic State leaders is sowing dissent and eroding morale within the Islamic State.
“Their leaders are not nearly as confident. They’re not nearly as capable,” McGurk said.
And as for Baghdadi, McGurk predicted “It’s really a matter of time for him.”
