The supreme leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was reportedly critically wounded or killed in an American airstrike on a Syrian town bordering Iraq Friday night.
Several witnesses confirmed airstrikes were launched against the town of al-Qaim and targeted a building believed to have hosted a meeting of several high-ranking ISIS leaders, the Daily Mail reports.
The bombing is reported to have resulted in the deaths of over a dozen individuals. The town where the bombings occurred is a strategic supply center for ISIS forces in both Iraq and Syria. A local hospital was swamped that night with people wounded or killed from the attacks, prompting ISIS militants to demand blood donations from town residents.
U.S. Central Command confirmed they had conducted strikes against a “gathering of [ISIS] leaders,” but representatives could not confirm whether al-Baghdadi was among those attending or whether present, if he was among those killed, The Telegraph reports.
“I can’t absolutely confirm that Baghdadi has been killed,” General Nicholas Houghton, the chief of staff of the British armed forces, stated in a Sunday BBC interview. “Probably it will take some days to have absolute confirmation.”
The Iraqi government is currently investigating whether the self-proclaimed “Caliph” was killed in the strike. “The information is from unofficial sources and was not confirmed until now, and we are working on that,” an Iraqi official told The Telegraph.