On Tuesday General Townsend, the commander of U.S. forces operating in Iraq and Syria, refused to confirm or deny the Russian claim that ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is dead
(VERO BEACH, FL) Speaking to reporters from Baghdad, Iraq through a video conference feed, Lt. Gen. Steve Townsend said that both American and coalition intelligence reports have been unable to confirm or deny the claims made by the Russian news outlets in May.
“Theres been a lot of media interest in the whereabouts and status of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi,” General Townsend said. “Despite all the helpful reports to us from every source imaginable, I’m unable to confirm or deny where he is or whether he is alive or dead.”
“Let me just say for the record my fervent hope is it is the latter,” General Townsend added.
During the Q&A portion of the press conference General Townsend further expanded on his thoughts about al-Baghdadi’s demise, saying he doesn’t have a reason to believe he is alive.
“Your question about Baghdadi, alive or dead, I really don’t know, I don’t have a reason to believe he’s alive, I don’t have proof of life,” General Townsend said. “The Russians some weeks ago claimed to have in an airstrike killed him, I think it was in the latter half of May, or last week of May, somewhere between Raqqa and Deir Ezzor I think they said.”
General Townsend added that regardless of the conflicting reports of the ISIS leader’s death, U.S. coalition forces will kill him if he’s still alive.
“I’ve received some reporting since then that suggest he was not killed there by the Russians but I don’t know,” General Townsend said. “Sine then I’ve heard all kinds of reporting that he’s alive, thats he’s dead, quite honestly don’t know, hope he’s deader than a door nail, if he’s not, as soon as we find out where he is, he will be.”
Currently, the U.S. government has a $25 million bounty reward for Al-Baghdadi’s capture, the same amount which was offered for former CIA asset turned al-Qaeda head Osama bin Laden.
Al-Baghdadi, who would be 45 years old if still alive, has not been seen publicly since his 2014 speech in Mosul at the Great Mosque of al-Nuri, where he proclaimed the founding of the Islamic State.
Iconically symbolizing the drastic shift in regional power away from ISIS and back into the hands of the Iraqi government over this past year, the minaret of that mosque was recently burned by ISIS fighters as the remnants of their caliphate was purged by a Sunni-Muslim/Kurdish coalition army.
Al-Baghdadi’s voice has to been heard since November 2016 in an audio recording, where he urged ISIS fighters to resist U.S.-backed Iraqi forces as the siege of Mosul was just beginning.