Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi dead????

[zinfamous]

Unfortunately it appears to be whack a mole over there. Al Queda goes down, up pops ISIS. ISIS goes down, up pops.. ? We may have a few years of relative calm in between before we go off on another adventure and stir the hornets net. Oh well.

It's a horrible thing to accept, but it seems to me that the best course of action is to just let Assad maintain his Iron Throne after this disaster is finished so that he can proceed to wipe out all of the nasty people within his borders, the only way he knows how.

I think it's too late to "give up" on Iraq--it seems there is a fragile hope that maybe, perhaps, some stable alliance can be gained within those borders if the Kurds are empowered to defend their territories in Northern Iraq and given autonomy to crush whatever extremists they deem necessary for neutralization; but it also means that US/other forces will need significant presence within large parts of Iraq to maintain protection outside of Kurdish lands, at least as long as everyone is confident that a full Iraqi battalion isn't going to drop their rifles at first sight of a scary looking flag.

It's abundantly clear that all of this is purely the result of Illegally invading Iraq. No sane person can now deny that these horrible yet secular despots were the ones keeping a largely democracy-loathing religious extremist majority population at heel. Perhaps it means creating another apartheid nation in the ME wrg to Iraq, exactly like what we have in Israel, but I can't imagine any pretty solution over there to maintain some form of stability over the next several decades.

 

[Ns1]

no confirmation, seems unlikely at this point?

 

[NAC4EV]

no confirmation, seems unlikely at this point?

I'm inclined to agree.
And yet the reports continue. Some sites say he was injured.

 

[MomentsofSanity]

He was reported as being wounded back on the 9th in an air strike by Iraqi TV. .mil seems skeptical of the claims however. Time will tell.

 

[NAC4EV]

Cat and mouse game goes on: Islamic State chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi may still be alive.

Information released Wednesday on the demise of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the founder of ISIS, was premature, and not for the first time. In the past year, there have been at least three false reports that al-Baghdadi was killed during US airstrikes.

Every hour that al-Baghdadi continues to live, he is essentially part of "the walking dead." Sooner or later intelligence will lead to a successful attack by an American drone or plane and the operational cycle will be closed.

Al-Baghdadi is living on borrowed time. He knows it, as do his senior commanders, who in the past weeks have been on the defensive, losing outposts, villages, cities and territories. The Caliphate understands that its territorial control is ending. The Iraqi army, along with Shi'a militias under the guidance of Iranian al-Quds force commander, General Qassam Sulimani, are besieging the city of Fallujah in Iraq and it's just a matter of time until it falls. The Syrian army from the West is closing in on the city of Raqqa, capital of the Caliphate, and Kurdish forces are advancing from the North.