BAGHDAD // The fate of ISIL’s leader remained unclear on Sunday after the US-led coalition targeted top militants in airstrikes near the Iraqi city of Mosul.
Claims swirled that Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi had been killed in the attacks late on Friday, but US officials could not confirm if he had even been present.
The news came after US president Barack Obama unveiled plans to send up to 1,500 more American troops to Iraq to help battle the militants who have seized a large swathe of territory.
In fresh violence on Saturday, some 33 people were killed in a wave of car bombings against Shiite areas in the capital Baghdad, highlighting again the security challenge facing Iraqis even within government-controlled zones.
US central command confirmed that coalition aircraft conducted a “series of airstrikes” against “a gathering of ISIL leaders near Mosul”.
A convoy of 10 armoured vehicles from the group was destroyed.
“We cannot confirm if ISIL leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi was among those present,” central command spokesman Patrick Ryder said.
A strike against Al Baghdadi, who has proclaimed himself the “caliph” of a state straddling Iraq and Syria, would be a major coup for the US-led coalition.
Washington has offered a US$10 million (Dh36.7m) reward for his capture, and some analysts say he is more powerful than Al Qaeda chief Ayman Al Zawahiri.
In a video posted online in July, purportedly the first known footage of Al Baghdadi, he ordered all Muslims to obey him during a sermon in Mosul.
Al Arabiya TV reported Al Baghdadi had been wounded, while a local Iraqi channel said one of his aides was killed.
Iraqi leaders welcomed the new US military trainers who will aid its fight against militants.
“This step is a little late, but we welcome it,” Iraqi prime minister Haider Al Abadi’s office said.
Mr Ryder said the US-led strikes were a further sign of “the pressure we continue to place on the ISIL terrorist network”.
The aim was to squeeze the group and ensure it had “increasingly limited freedom to manoeuvre, communicate and command”.
The new troops will roughly double the number of American soldiers already in the country and marks a deepening US commitment in the war.
The government had requested that members of the international coalition help train and arm its forces.
Four to five Iraqi training camps have been selected and the coalition has begun sending the trainers there, said the prime minister’s office.
Multiple Iraqi army divisions collapsed in the early days of the northern offensive by ISIL, leaving major units that need to be reconstituted.
The latest car bombings struck five Shiite-majority areas of Baghdad and wounded more than 100 people.
The deadliest single attack was in Sinaa street in the city’s central Karrada district which killed at least 10.
* Agence France-Presse