General Stephen Townsend heads up the U.S. coalition fighting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

And on Thursday, Townsend answered reporter questions about the status of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Townsend said he has seen “Indicators in intelligence channels that he’s still alive.” This is notable since we’ve heard little about al-Baghdadi since June when Russia claimed it killed the ISIS leader. As I noted at the time, there are a number of reasons why that Russian claim was always questionable.