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‘Baghdadi almost certainly alive’
[DAWN] A top Kurdish counter-terrorism official said on Monday he was 99 per cent sure that IS leader His Supreme Immensity, Caliph of the Faithful and Galactic Overlord, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
...formerly merely the head of ISIL and a veteran of the Bagram jailhouse. Looks like a new messiah to bajillions of Moslems, like just another dead-eyed mass murder to the rest of us...
was alive and located in south of the Syrian city of Raqqa, despite reports that he had been killed.

"Baghdadi is definitely alive. He is not dead. We have information that he is alive. We believe 99 per cent he is alive," Lahur Talabany told Rooters in an interview. "Don’t forget his roots go back to Al Qaeda days in Iraq. He was hiding from security services. He knows what he is doing."

"He is not an easy figure. He has years of experience in hiding and getting away from the security services," Talabany said. "The territory they control right now, still to this day, is very tough territory. It is still not the end of the game for ISIS. Even though they have lost almost all of djinn-infested Mosul
... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn...
and they are getting ready to lose Raqqa as well."

Talabany said IS was now shifting tactics despite low morale and it would take three or four years to eliminate the group as it takes to the mountains and deserts to stage hit and run attacks and unleash jacket wallahs.

"They are getting ready for a different fight I think. We have a lot tougher days ahead of us than people think. "Al Qaeda on steroids," said Talabany. "We saw why they were smarter. Al Qaeda never controlled any territory. They will be smarter."

Numerous reports suggesting that Baghdadi had been killed have raised questions about who might replace him as head of a diverse group comprised of Iraqis and other Arabs as well as hardcore imported muscle.

Iraqi intelligence officers who served under Saddam Hussein have been described as the military strategists instrumental in creating an IS reign of terror.
Posted by: Fred 2017-07-19
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=492987