The shadowy Daesh terrorist leader has been rumored to be hiding out on the Syrian-Iraqi border since May, and had been reported killed or incapacitated by US or Russian air and artillery strikes on multiple occasions, with none of the reports ever being confirmed, Sputnik reported.
Jabbar al-Maamouri, leader of the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces, has told Iraqi media that the Iranian missile strike in Syria earlier this month was aimed in part at liquidating Daesh (ISIS)* leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and that only his lateness to a meeting of militant commanders saved him from certain death.
"The Iranian shelling against specific pockets of Islamic State east of the Euphrates in Syria using missiles [a] few days ago targeted an important meeting for the so-called Islamic State's war council, to which Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was on [his] way," al-Maamouri said, according to Iraqi News.
Al-Baghdadi "was about to get killed in the shelling but he survived as he was a few minutes late for the meeting," the Iraqi militia commander added.
The Iranian strikes did succeed in liquidating Ali al-Mashadani, al-Baghdadi's deputy, as well as several other Daesh leaders, according to al-Maamouri.
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps launched six surface-to-surface ballistic missiles at terrorists in Syria on Monday in response to the September 22 terrorist attack on a military parade in the southern Iranian city of Ahvaz which left 25 people dead and dozens more injured.