As U.S. Kills ISIS Leaders, a Notorious One Remains Elusive
The latest foray into figuring out whether the Islamic State leader is dead or alive began June 16, when Russia’s military — which is also bombing the Islamic State
in Syria — said it was looking into whether one of its airstrikes in the Syrian desert had killed Mr. Baghdadi, the self-declared caliph of the Islamic State.
As for Mr. Baghdadi, the Defense Department has no concrete evidence of whether he is still alive, Col. Ryan Dillon, a spokesman for the American-led coalition
that is fighting the Islamic State, told reporters on Friday from Baghdad.
By HELENE COOPERJUNE 23, 2017
WASHINGTON — On the same day the Pentagon announced it had killed yet another Islamic State leader
that few Americans have heard of, Fawaz Muhammad Jubayr Al-Rawi, American officials also said they do not know if the Islamic State’s most well-known name, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, is still alive.
In a statement, the Defense Ministry said the Russian Air Force had struck a meeting of Islamic State
leaders on May 28 outside Raqqa, Syria, the group’s de facto capital, possibly killing Mr. Baghdadi.
Dillon said that That said, we don’t have any concrete evidence on whether or not he’s dead, either,
They said they were reviewing reports from May 28 and subsequent days for clues, but pointed out
that Mr. Baghdadi has not been heard from publicly since November, when the Islamic State released a blistering audio recording in which he urged forces to remain firm in the face of the American-backed Iraqi offensive in Mosul.
Mr. Rawi owned a currency exchange that he used, along with a network of global financial contacts, "to move money into
and out of ISIS-controlled territory and across borders," a Defense Department statement said, using an acronym for the Islamic State.
