Kurdish Official: 99% Certain ISIS Leader Baghdadi NOT Dead

Despite claims in June by the Russian military that its drone strike had killed ISIS chief Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, a subsequent tweet by President Trump that seemingly confirmed the terrorist leader’s death, and further confirmation in July by the normally reliable Syrian Observatory for Human Rights in July that the reports were accurate, if a Kurdish official is right, the reports were premature at best. Lahur Talabany, the respected head of Iraqi Kurdistan’s Zanyari intelligence service was quoted by the Reuters news agency as saying he is “99% certain” that Baghdadi survived and is living south of Raqqa, the functional capital of the ISIS caliphate. What is seemingly consensus is that ISIS losses in the ground war can be expected to increase the terrorist group’s determination to strike globally.