Russia raised doubts on Sunday over the “umpteenth death” of Islamic State group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who has been reported killed several times since 2014.
“The defence ministry does not have reliable information about the actions of the US army in the Idlib ‘de-escalation’ zone… concerning the umpteenth ‘death’ of Baghdadi,” defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in a statement.
He said there were “contradictory details” which raised “legitimate questions and doubts about the success of this American operation”.
“Since the final defeat of the Islamic State by the Syrian government with the support of Russian air power in 2018, the umpteenth ‘death’ of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has no operational significance for the situation in Syria nor for the actions of the remaining terrorists in Idlib.”
US President Donald Trump announced that Baghdadi had been killed in a nighttime US raid deep inside northwestern Syria.