As U.S. Kills ISIS Leaders, a Notorious One Remains Elusive<br />The latest foray into figuring out whether the Islamic State leader is dead or alive began June 16, when Russia’s military — which is also bombing the Islamic State<br />in Syria — said it was looking into whether one of its airstrikes in the Syrian desert had killed Mr. Baghdadi, the self-declared caliph of the Islamic State.<br />As for Mr. Baghdadi, the Defense Department has no concrete evidence of whether he is still alive, Col. Ryan Dillon, a spokesman for the American-led coalition<br />that is fighting the Islamic State, told reporters on Friday from Baghdad.<br />By HELENE COOPERJUNE 23, 2017<br />WASHINGTON — On the same day the Pentagon announced it had killed yet another Islamic State leader<br />that few Americans have heard of, Fawaz Muhammad Jubayr Al-Rawi, American officials also said they do not know if the Islamic State’s most well-known name, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, is still alive.<br />In a statement, the Defense Ministry said the Russian Air Force had struck a meeting of Islamic State<br />leaders on May 28 outside Raqqa, Syria, the group’s de facto capital, possibly killing Mr. Baghdadi.<br />Dillon said that That said, we don’t have any concrete evidence on whether or not he’s dead, either,<br />They said they were reviewing reports from May 28 and subsequent days for clues, but pointed out<br />that Mr. Baghdadi has not been heard from publicly since November, when the Islamic State released a blistering audio recording in which he urged forces to remain firm in the face of the American-backed Iraqi offensive in Mosul.<br />Mr. Rawi owned a currency exchange that he used, along with a network of global financial contacts, "to move money into<br />and out of ISIS-controlled territory and across borders," a Defense Department statement said, using an acronym for the Islamic State.
