The news was relaunched by The Guardian, citing sources believed to be very reliable. The air raid took place last March.
The conditions of Baghdadi were judged immediately serious, so much to push the organization to appoint (in pectore) one of his substitutes. Immediately transferred to a secret location, the spiritual leader of the Islamic State would slowly recover, but has not yet regained control of the organization.
The air attack took place on 18 last March, near al-Baaj, a district of Nineveh, near the Syrian border. The wounding of al-Baghdadi would seem certain, while the two similar episodes reported last November and December would have been denied. In these last two attacks, of the number one of the Isis there was no trace.
The attack took place on the road connecting the village of Umm al-Rous and al-Qaraan. The convoy, made up of three vehicles, had been monitored for hours by the Coalition drones, which at first hypothesized could be a column with some senior ISIS executives on board.
The attack was authorized by the allied command. Four missiles would have been launched and at least three victims confirmed. No one, however, could speculate that in one of those armored vehicles there was al-Baghdadi. The Caliph would have decided to hide in the vicinity of al-Baaj, 200 km west from Mosul, because it was considered an area not guarded by the United States. An area considered outside the US shield. Al-Baaj, predominantly Sunni, has long been considered a high-risk area, even under the regime of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. It was considered a safe haven for jihadists since 2004.
For several months, the Coalition aircraft have been carrying out targeted attacks in "targeting leader" operations. Baghdadi's deputy Abu Muslim al-Turkmani and the group's head of military operations in Iraq were killed in early December.
Franco Iacch
