Pentagon cannot confirm ISIL leader was hit in airstrike

US military officials say lower-level militant figures may have been hit in airstrikes.

WASHINGTON // The US military can not confirm reports that ISIL’s leader may have been struck in an airstrike, but a Pentagon official suggested on Monday that lower-level figures may have been hit.

Speculation has swirled over the fate of militant leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi after local claims that he was killed or wounded in a strike by the US-led air armada targeting his group.

Al Baghdadi is the self-declared “caliph” of the radical group that has seized large swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria.

“Obviously there’s a lot of conflicting reports out there on the fate of Al Baghdadi. But the bottom line from our perspective is we simply cannot confirm his current status,” Pentagon spokesman Colonel Steven Warren said.

The Pentagon has said strikes on Friday hit a gathering of ISIL leaders in the northern Iraq city of Mosul, prompting rumours of Baghdadi’s demise.

US officials are looking into the reports, but Col Warren suggested on Monday that it was in fact lower “tactical-level leadership” who were hit.

“It was a 10-vehicle convoy which we had reason to believe may have consisted of ISIL battlefield commanders or battlefield leaders,” Col Warren had said about the strike on Friday.

The death of Al Baghdadi would be a major victory for the US-led coalition, which in August launched a bombing campaign to roll back the large territorial gains of ISIL in Syria and Iraq.

US president Barack Obama said on Sunday that the fight against ISIL would soon go on the offensive.

Last week, he unveiled plans to send an additional 1,500 American troops to Iraq to advise and train the country’s forces.

* Agence France-Press