Two Iraqi security sources and two Iranian officials said they had received confirmation from inside Syria that Baghdadi had been killed. For days, US officials had feared that Islamic State would seek to capitalize on the upheaval in Syria. In the audio message, Baghdadi also said the United States and its proxies had been defeated in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that the United States had been "dragged" into Mali and Niger. US air strikes killed most of his top lieutenants, and before Islamic State published a video message of Baghdadi in April there had been conflicting reports over whether he was alive. Despite losing its last significant territory, Islamic State is believed to have sleeper cells around the world, and some fighters operate from the shadows in Syria's desert and Iraq's cities.

Source: Otago Daily Times October 27, 2019 06:00 UTC