ISIL leader Baghdadi hiding in al-Ba’aj in northern Iraq: Report

A recent report has uncovered the location of ISIL Takfiri terrorist leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, saying he is hiding in a town in Iraq’s northern Nineveh province.

“Baghdadi is understood to have been spending much of his time in al-Ba’aj,” said a report published in the Guardian on Wednesday.
The report quoted an anonymous source as saying that Baghdadi had chosen the village because he knew the US forces did not have much cover there.

“From 2003 (the US military) barely had a presence there. It was the one part of Iraq that they hadn’t mapped out,” the source added.

The source confirmed that Baghdadi was seriously injured during a US-led coalition attack in March, adding that even though his wounds were initially life threatening, he has slowly recovered from his injuries.

“He has not, however, resumed day-to-day control of the organization,” the report goes on to say.

“Yes, he was wounded in al-Ba’aj near the village of Umm al-Rous on 18 March with a group that was with him,” Hisham al-Hashimi, an Iraqi intelligence official, told the Guardian.
The report has not been confirmed by US officials. “We have nothing to confirm this report,” said a Pentagon spokesman.

Ba’aj has been considered as a safe haven for terrorists since 2004 and has always remained outside of state control and has long been used by smugglers to import goods from nearby Syria.

ISIL launched an offensive in Iraq in June last year and took control of Mosul, the country’s second-largest city, before sweeping through parts of the country’s heartland.

The terrorists have committed heinous crimes and threatened all communities, including Shias, Sunnis, Kurds, and Christians during their advances in Iraq.

Iraqi soldiers, police units, Kurdish forces, Shia fighters and Sunni tribesmen have been engaged in joint operations to drive the terrorists out of the areas they have seized.