On June 16, the Russian Defense Ministry said that al-Baghdadi might have been among a group of terrorist leaders attending a so-called ISIL military council and killed in a Russian Aerospace Forces strike on May 28 south of the terrorists' stronghold of Raqqa in northern Syria.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, commenting on the news, said he could not give firm proof that the ISIL leader was indeed killed.
In 2014, al-Baghdadi, at the time the ISIL, declared establishment of a caliphate and named himself its caliph. He is also listed as a terrorist by the US Department of State since 2011.
SPUTNIK/MNA