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BAGHDAD/FALLUJA (Reuters) - U.S. and Iraqi officials said on Friday they could not confirm a report by an Iraqi TV channel that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had been wounded in an air strike in northern Iraq.
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[FONT=&]A spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition fighting the radical Islamist militants, Colonel Chris Garver, said in an email that he had seen the reports but had "nothing to confirm this at this time".
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[FONT=&]Brett McGurk, the U.S. envoy to the coalition, told a daily briefing at the White House in Washington that there was no reason to believe that Baghdadi was not alive "even though we haven't heard of him since late last year."
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[FONT=&]"We presume that he's still alive," he added. "It's really a matter of time for him."[/FONT]
[FONT=&]Kurdish and Arab security officials in northern Iraq said they also could not confirm the report.
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[FONT=&]Al Sumariya TV cited a local source in the northern province of Nineveh saying that Baghdadi and other Islamic State leaders were wounded on Thursday in a coalition air strike on one of the group's command headquarters close to the Syrian border
http://https://www.yahoo.com/news/u-led-coalition-cant-confirm-report-islamic-state-082225700.html[/FONT]
BAGHDAD/FALLUJA (Reuters) - U.S. and Iraqi officials said on Friday they could not confirm a report by an Iraqi TV channel that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had been wounded in an air strike in northern Iraq.
[/FONT]
[FONT=&]A spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition fighting the radical Islamist militants, Colonel Chris Garver, said in an email that he had seen the reports but had "nothing to confirm this at this time".
[/FONT]
[FONT=&]Brett McGurk, the U.S. envoy to the coalition, told a daily briefing at the White House in Washington that there was no reason to believe that Baghdadi was not alive "even though we haven't heard of him since late last year."
[/FONT]
[FONT=&]"We presume that he's still alive," he added. "It's really a matter of time for him."[/FONT]
[FONT=&]Kurdish and Arab security officials in northern Iraq said they also could not confirm the report.
[/FONT]
[FONT=&]Al Sumariya TV cited a local source in the northern province of Nineveh saying that Baghdadi and other Islamic State leaders were wounded on Thursday in a coalition air strike on one of the group's command headquarters close to the Syrian border
http://https://www.yahoo.com/news/u-led-coalition-cant-confirm-report-islamic-state-082225700.html[/FONT]
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