Hudayfah al-Badri, son of Daesh leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has been killed in the central Syrian province of Homs, according to the Telegram channel Directorate 4 which monitors terrorists' activity.
The channel reported that al-Badri was obliterated during an attack by militants on the positions of Syrian and Russian forces located near one of the thermal power plants in Homs province.
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On May 8, Fox News cited Abu Ali al-Basri, director-general of the intelligence and counter-terrorism office of the Iraqi Ministry of Interior, as saying that the Daesh leader is believed to be still at large.
"The last information we have is he [al-Baghdadi] is in Al-Hajin in Syria, 18 miles from the border in Deir ez-Zor province," Abu Ali al-Basri said.
He was echoed by Brig. Gen. Yahya Rasool, spokesperson for the Iraqi Ministry of Defense and for the Joint Operations Command, who confirmed al-Baghdadi's location on the border east of the Euphrates River, in an area still controlled by the terrorists.
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"It is not difficult for him to hide in the Syrian desert," Rasool noted.
Upon proclaiming itself a global caliphate in 2014, Daesh managed to seize large areas of western Iraq and eastern Syria in 2015, imposing its own radical form of Sharia law there.
As a result of subsequent anti-terrorist efforts by the Syrian government and Russia, as well as the Iraqi government in neighboring Iraq and the US-led coalition, Daesh has lost over 90 percent of the territory it once controlled in Syria and Iraq, including its strongholds in Deir ez-Zor, Mosul and Raqqa.
*Daesh, a terrorist group banned in Russia and an array of other countries
