Iraqi security officials issued statements Sunday saying that an Iraqi airstrike wounded Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). The officials said that al-Baghdadi was hit during a meeting Saturday with militants in the town of Qaim in Iraq's western Anbar province, Associated Press reported. Pentagon officials said they had no immediate information on such strike. Al-Baghdadi is an Iraqi militant, believed to be in his early 40s, who took the reins of the group in 2010 and transformed it from a local branch of al-Qaida into an independent transnational military force, positioning himself as perhaps the pre-eminent figure in the global jihadi community. Three months since the US-led international military coalition began its war against ISIL, the coalition held nearly 800 airstrikes in Iraq and Syria. Despite the massive US-led airstrikes against the terrorists and their strongholds in Iraq and Syria, the leader of ISIL is still safe. The question is how soon the coalition would target the main figure in the group. Some military experts think that targeting al-Baghdadi may threaten the main goal of the military campaign that seeks to destroy the whole group, not only its leader. Meanwhile, Egypt's deadliest militant group, Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, pledged its allegiance to the Islamic State, in a recording posted on its Twitter account on Monday. "We announce our pledge of allegiance to the caliph Ibrahim Ibn Awad... to listen and obey," the audio recording said, referring to ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The group has waged a campaign of violence from its Sinai Peninsula stronghold that has killed scores of policemen and soldiers since the Egyptian army ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July last year.
