The Chief of the so-called “Islamic State”, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, remains incapacitated due to suspected spinal damage and is being treated by two doctors who travel to his hideout from the group’s stronghold of Mosul, the Guardian reports.
More than two months after being injured in a air strike in north-western Iraq, the self-proclaimed caliph is yet to resume command of the terror group that has been rampaging through Iraq and Syria since June last year.
Three sources close to ISIS have confirmed that Baghdadi’s wounds could mean he will never again lead the organisation.
Isis is now being led by a long-term senior official, Abu Alaa al-Afri, who had been appointed deputy leader when his predecessor was killed by an air strike late last year.
It is reported that Baghdadi had been seriously wounded on 18 March in an air strike that killed three men he was travelling with. The attack took place in al-Baaj, 80 miles west of Mosul.
Sources within Mosul, who refused to be named, said a female radiologist from a main Mosul hospital and a male surgeon had treated Baghdadi. Both, along with their extended families, are strong ideological supporters of the group.
Afri is a professor of physics and a long-term member of ISIS. He was successor to the group’s previous leader, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, who was killed in a US-led raid near Tikrit in April 2010.
Baghdadi, 43, was the head of al-Qaeda in Iraq before founding the "Islamic State in Iraq" in 2010, while he was declared head of the "Islamic State in Iraq and Syria" in 2013.
In June last year, the ISIS/ISIL declared itself a caliphate, with al-Baghdadi declared as its ‘Caliph’ or ruler.