Russia Examining Reports of ISIS Ringleader’s Death

Speaking on Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists on that, "We don’t have some more accurate data".
 
"Indeed, contradictory information is coming. Our relevant services are currently checking it," the Kremlin spokesman said.
 
Director of the Iraqi Interior Ministry’s Intelligence and Counter-Terrorism Operations Service Abu Ali al-Basri said on Sunday that leader of the Islamic State terror group Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was alive and was hiding in Syria.
 
Iraq’s al-Sumaria television channel said on July 11 citing a source in Iraq’s Nineveh province that ISIS terrorists had reported the death of their ringleader. According to the television channel, ISIS issued a brief statement on al-Baghdadi’s death where they said the name of a "new caliph" would be announced soon.
 
Russia’s Defense Ministry reported in mid-June that al-Baghdadi and 300 ISIS terrorists had been presumably killed in a Russian airstrike on Raqqa’s southern suburb.
 
Meanwhile, one of Iraqi Kurdistan's intelligence chiefs says al-Baghdadi is almost certainly still alive. Lahur Talabany told Reuters, “We believe 99 percent he is alive".
 
Talabany said the notorious ISIS ringleader is most likely hiding south of the eastern Syrian city of Raqqa, the de facto capital of ISIS's self-styled caliphate currently on its death throes.