ISIL Members Live in Fear after Reports on Death of Al-Baghdadi, Syrian Army’s Huge Advances

Local sources in Deir Ezzur reported that a number of ISIL commanders have fled their bases in the province after hearing  reports about the Syrian army’s advances and the death of their ringleader.

Meantime, an analyst said that the ISIL project to transfer its capital from Raqqa to Deir Ezzur has failed given the terrorist group’s heavy defeats in Raqqa, Hama, Homs and Deir Ezzur.

He added that the report on the death of al-Baghdadi – correct or incorrect – is a very heavy blow to the terrorist group and will leave negative impacts on ISIL militants.

Noting that after killing of a leader, the command structure of a formation will collapse too, the analyst predicted that the trend of ISIL’s annihilation will be accelerated given the pressure that the terrorist group is bearing in Syria and Iraq.

Meantime, reports said that a number of ISIL commanders who sought to defect the terrorist group were arrested and executed by the ISIL security forces, while the operations to assassinate senior ISIL commanders have also increased.

The Russian Defense Ministry reported Friday that ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi may have been killed as a result of a Russian airstrike South of Raqqa in late May.
The Daesh leader may have been alongside other leaders of the extremist group and 330 terrorists killed in the air raid.

“As a result of the Su-35 and Su-34 airstrikes, high-ranking commanders of the terrorist groups who were part of the so-called IS [Daesh] military council, as well as about 30 mid-level field commanders and up to 300 militants of their personal security, have been killed,” the ministry said in a statement.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (Ibrahim Awad Ibrahim al-Badri), also known as Abu Dua, was born in 1971 in the city of Samarra in Iraq.

According to media reports, al-Baghdadi was brought up in a religious family. His relatives were famous preachers and specialists of the Arabic language, rhetoric and logic. He received a PhD in Islamic law from the University of Baghdad.

Al-Baghdadi was proclaimed the caliph of Daesh, a “caliphate” created on the territories Daesh managed to seize in Syria and Iraq in late June 2014.

Reports of al-Baghdadi’s death repeatedly appear in the world media. His death was reported in November 2014, April 2015, June, October and December 2016 and January 2017.