After its collapse in Mosul, Daesh has announced that the Takfiri terror group’s leader Ibrahim al-Samarrai, aka Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, “has been killed,” a local source in Iraq’s Nineveh province said.
Daesh announced the death of its leader in a brief statement released via the terrorist group’s media outlet in the center of Tal Afar city, situated 63 kilometers west of Mosul, without providing further details, the local source told Iraq’s al-Sumaria news website Tuesday.
The source, who asked not to be named, added that the group said it would name a successor to Baghdadi soon.
The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group affiliated to Syria's foreign-backed opposition groups, has also said that it has "confirmed information" that Baghdadi has been killed.
Following the announcement by Daesh, another local source revealed that an internal revolt and infighting had broken out within Daesh ranks in Tal Afar.
The source added that a wide-scale arrest campaign was launched against supporters of Baghdadi.
According to the report, a curfew was also declared in most of the city.
The report comes weeks after Russia said it was “highly likely” that the Daesh leader had been killed in an airstrike carried out by the Russian Air Force in Syria’s Raqqah city in May.
This came after Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi formally declared victory of the country’s forces over the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group one day after the country’s military and Popular Mobilization Forces took full control of the northern city.