ISIS ringleader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is reportedly seriously ill after having his food poisoned by an assassin.
Meals prepared for the ISIS leader and three other commanders of the terrorist organisation were allegedly poisoned in the Be’aaj district, southwest of Nineveh.
A source told Iraqi news agency WAA the four are suffering from ‘severe poisoning’ and ‘have been transferred to an unknown location under strict measures.’
The terror group have reportedly launched a campaign of arrests to track down those responsible.
Earlier this year, the Pentagon warned Baghdadi that he would eventually “taste justice” as the US military continued to target the extremist group’s upper ranks. “We are hunting him, and we will find him,” military spokesperson Colonel Steve Warren said.
“Just like we found his mentor (Abu Musab) al-Zarqawi and killed him. Just like we found the grand master of terrorism, Osama bin Laden, we killed him. We are going to find Baghdadi, and he will taste justice,” he said.
Born in Iraq in 1971, Baghdadi emerged as the leader of an al Qaeda offshoot which later became Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), in 2010.
In 2015, Islamic State proclaimed its leader Baghdadi as “caliph” – the head of the state. Baghdadi aspires to establish a global caliphate with himself at its head.
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