Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

The Iraqi military announced on Thursday that special forces had recaptured the iconic Mosul mosque where jihadist chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi made his only known public appearance, AFP reported.

A top special forces commander told AFP that while the Nuri mosque - which was blown up by the Islamic State group last week -- was close to being recaptured, it had not been retaken yet.

The battle to take full control of Mosul from Islamic State of  Iraq and the Levant will be over in a few days and an attempted fight-back by the militants failed, an Iraqi general told Reuters on June 26.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has said it is "highly likely" that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of Islamic State (IS, former ISIS/ISIL), was eliminated in an airstrike carried out by the Russian Air Force in Syria earlier in May.

The Russian army on Friday said it had struck a meeting of Islamic State leaders in Syria on May 28 and was trying to verify whether the group's leader had been killed, news agencies said on Friday, AFP reported.

Moscow said on June 16 that its forces may have killed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in an air strike near the Syrian city of Raqqa last month.

The Russian army on June 16 said it hit Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) leaders in an airstrike in Syria last month and was seeking to verify whether ISIL chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had been killed.

The Russian Defense Ministry is verifying reports that a Russian Aerospace Forces strike killed Islamic State leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi.

The attack happened south of Raqqa on May 28, Sputnik is reporting.

Syrian state television has claimed the world’s most wanted terrorist Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has been killed in an airstrike, according to several reports.
However, it is not the first time the leader of ISIS has been reported dead – the latest claims have been met with skepticism by many experts and could well turn out to be untrue.

An FBI translator with a top-secret security clearance traveled to Syria in 2014 and married a key ISIS operative she had been assigned to investigate, CNN has learned.

The rogue employee, Daniela Greene, lied to the FBI about where she was going and warned her new husband he was under investigation, according to federal court records.

The United States disclosed on April 21 a secret military ground operation that killed an Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militant seen as a close associate of the jihadist group's leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and linked to an attack on a Turkish nightclub that left 39 people dead.