URGENT: US warplanes surround al-Baghdadi in Mosul after arrival with 200 ISIS elements
(IraqiNews.com) Local Iraqi security sources revealed that the leader of the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi arrived in the city of Mosul, coming from Syria at the head of a large force not less than two hundred fighters.
A senior Iraqi military official in the Defense Ministry said that the ministry received verified information from several sources about the arrival of ISIS leader al-Baghdadi to Mosul on his first visit to the city since two months ago.
The source, a Brigadier General in the Presidium of Iraqi Army Staff, said that ‘al-Baghdadi— who was limited to move inside Iraq, between Anbar and cities of Shirqat areas and Hamrin Mountains—arrived in the city of Mosul from Syria, taking advantage of low visibility in the border area due to rain and fog.
He pointed out that “the arrival of al-Baghdadi yesterday was preceded by a complete cut of mobile and internet communications networks throughout the day, while the militants of ISIS were deployed all around the city. They wore a uniform and launched a campaign to clean up the main streets.”
The source also revealed that al-Baghdadi arrived at the head of a large force of not less than 200 fighters, most of them were non-Iraqis, adding that “there are several hypotheses about the cause of his arrival to the city with this new issue of its fighters”. It is likely that Baghdadi visited Mosul because of recent setbacks of the organization and its inability to prevent raids by the international coalition warplanes and severe differences that beset the field of leadership in that area.
He explained that al-Baghdadi had finally appointed Hussein Saud as a governor of Mosul instead of the Iraqi Radwan al-Hamdani, who was killed by a US raid west of Mosul, in 19th of this month, pointing out that the “3 US fighter jets with surveillance planes are patrolling the skies of Mosul, hoping to be able to besiege Baghdadi inside the city and prevent him from returning to Syria or going out to another city in Iraq”.
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