Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State (ISIS), is reportedly in such bad condition after being wounded in an airstrike that he is unable to move.
Kareem Shaheen of The Guardian revealed the news on Twitter Monday:
Al-Baghdadi was reportedly injured when a three-car convoy in which he was traveling
was hit by a U.S.-led coalition airstrike on March 18 in Iraq near the Syrian border.
Three men were believed to have been killed in the strike, and al-Baghdadi, if the reports are true, was severely wounded and can no longer move because of a spinal injury.
Al-Baghdadi declared himself the caliph of ISIS last year. He narrowly escaped death in a December airstrike, and
there were reports a month before
that he might have been killed or injured in another strike.
In the wake of the most recent attack on al-Baghdadi, ISIS is reportedly being controlled by a temporary leader who happens to be a former physics teacher.
Iraqi
Abu Alaa Afri, who had been serving as Al-Baghdadi's deputy, is apparently leading the terror group.
A recent report, meanwhile, claimed the leaders within ISIS
are mostly former commanders from Saddam Hussein's inner circle.
The Pentagon said recently that ISIS is being
"slowly pushed back" in Iraq, and that it has lost 25 to 30 percent of the territory it once controlled.
Experts, however,
cast doubt on the Pentagon's claim, saying a map the Pentagon released showing which areas ISIS controls is not completely accurate.
The map, according to Brookings Doha Center visiting fellow Charles Lister, does not show where ISIS managed to gain territory. And it does not depict western Syria, where ISIS has maintained control since last summer.
© 2023 Newsmax. All rights reserved.