Moscow: A senior Russian lawmaker has said Moscow is “nearly 100 per cent” sure that Daesh top leader was killed in a Russian air strike last month.
The Defence Ministry first made the claim last week, saying that Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi’s death in the May 28 strike on the outskirts of the Syrian city of Raqqa was still “being verified through various channels.”
Viktor Ozerov, head of the defence and security committee at the upper chamber of the Russian parliament, told the Interfax news agency on Friday that Russia’s intelligence about Al Baghdadi’s death is “nearly 100 per cent” certain.
“Russia would not want to be on the list of the countries that have said before that he was killed and then Al Baghdadi would resurrect,” Ozerov added.
The whereabouts of the shadowy Al Baghdadi, with a $25 million (Dh91.75 million) US bounty on his head, have not been known. His last public appearance was almost three years ago in the Iraqi city of Mosul, at the 12th century Al Nouri Mosque from where he declared a so-called “caliphate” in the territory that Daesh had seized in Iraq and Syria in July 2014.
That mosque, along with its famous leaning minaret, was destroyed on Wednesday night, blown up by Daesh terrorists as their control of Mosul increasingly is slipping away. The mosque would have been a symbolic prize for Iraqi forces and the US-led coalition in the fight for Iraq’s second-largest city.
Meanwhile, Russia said it fired cruise missiles from the Mediterranean Sea on positions of Daesh in Syria, the Defence Ministry said on Friday, Moscow’s latest show of strength in the conflict wracking the Mideast country.
The ministry said in a statement that two frigates and a submarine launched six cruise missiles on Daesh installations in Syria’s Hama province, destroying command centers and ammunition depots. It did not say when the missiles were launched.
Moscow has fired missiles from the Mediterranean at terrorists’ positions in Syria before, including launches from a submarine and a frigate in May at the targets in the area of the ancient city of Palmyra.
Russia is one of the strongest backers of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad’s government and has been carrying air strikes in the country since September 2015.
