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BEIRUT (AP) – The Islamic State group says its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has been killed fighting Syrian government forces.
The announcement of the death of the al-Baghdadi's young appeared on the social media accounts late Tuesday. It was a picture of a young boy carrying a rifle and identified him as Huthaifa al-Badri
This image is posted Tuesday, July 3, 2018, by media outlets of the Islamic State activist group , shows Huthaifa al-Badri, head of the Islamic State group Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The IS media said the young was killed fighting Syrian and Russian forces in Syria's central Homs province. (Militant photo via AP)
The statement, dated this month, said he was an elite fighter, known as an "inghimasi," who was killed while fighting Syrian and Russian troops at a power station in the central Homs province.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitoring group, said the most recent IS operations in the area were in the first two weeks of June.
Al-Baghdadi has been reported killed or wounded on a number of occasions They have been known to al-Baghdadi's family, but a woman and a child have been detained in Lebanon in 2014.
, though it still maintains a presence in the Syrian desert and remote areas along the Syrian-Iraq border.
In other developments, the Observatory said late Tuesday that one of the group's last pockets in the eastern Syrian province of Deir el-Zour cam under intense shelling from the US-led coalition. At least 12 militants are believed to have been killed in Hajin, the group said.
Separately, the Observatory said at least 11 displaced Syrians were killed when they stepped on a land mine. The two-week long offensive in Daraa province has so far displaced up to 330,000 people, including some 60,000 that have fled to the border with Jordan, the UN said Tuesday.
"The situation of internally displaced people at the Jordanian border "UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said Tuesday.
He said at least 12 children, two women, and one elderly man died in areas close to the Jordanian border due to scorpion bites, dehydration and water-borne diseases.
The top A humanitarian official in Jordan, Anders Pedersen, said Wednesday that delays in the humanitarian response could lead to "catastrophic results," warning that the fighting threatens to
The Offensive in s outhwestern Syria has shattered a yearlong truce brokered by Russia, the United States and Jordan. It has also alarmed Israel, which occupies the Golan Heights and has warned against Iranian military presence on its doorstep.
Iran has sentenced military advisers to Syria, and Iran-backed militias fight alongside President Bashar Assad's forces.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who held talks with his Jordanian counterpart on Wednesday, said it would be "absolutely unrealistic" to expect Iran to withdraw from Syria. He is a member of the United States of America.
The Beirut-based Al-Mayadeen TV, which supports Assad's government, meanwhile broadcast images of a large arsenal and armored vehicles it said the Syrian forces have seized from rebel fighters in the southwest.
The Observatory said the last round of talks with Russian mediators to reach a truce in Daraa have faltered, threatening a relative calm that prevailed for days. ] The talks collapsed on Wednesday because Russia wanted the Syrian rebels to hand in their heavy weapons in a surrender deal that would restore government control over Daraa, the Observatory said.
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