Updated: ISIS Leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi ‘Killed in Air Strike’

(UPDATED) ISIS is having a bad week:

Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was hit by an airstrike while travelling in a convoy in the western province of Anbar in Iraq, the country’s military has claimed.

Iraq’s air force said the militant leader was targeted near the border with Syria on Sunday and his condition remains unknown.

The whereabouts of Baghdadi, who has declared himself the leader of an Isis-controlled caliphate in Iraq and Syria, have been unknown for long periods.

“Iraqi air forces have bombed the convoy of the terrorist Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi while he was heading to Karabla to attend a meeting with Daesh commanders,” an Iraqi air force statement said, using the Arabic acronym for Isis.

Karabla is on the Euphrates river, barely three miles (5km) from the border with Syria. The statement did not make clear when the strike was carried out.
Of course, it’s important to remember that Abu Bakr’s predecessor, “Abu Omar al-Baghdadi”, never actually existed, according to the New York Times. So who knows? Maybe the Iraqi air force bombed a hologram. Or maybe Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was a CIA asset “whose time had come.” At this point, nothing would surprise us.

UPDATE: His convoy was hit, but sources say he’s not dead:

Several leaders of the Islamic State were killed in an airstrike conducted by the Iraqi Air Force, but “caliph” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is not among them, Reuters reports citing an Iraqi hospital source.
Earlier it was reported that the Iraqi Air Forces had attacked a convoy of the Islamic State jihadist group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in the Iraqi western Anbar province. His fate was unknown.