Top US Counterterror Official Says No Evidence IS Leader Dead

Last Friday, Mattis said he could not confirm or deny reports that Baghdadi was dead, but National Counterterrorism Center Director Nick Rasmussen said earlier Friday that he had no indications the terror leader was dead.

The defence secretary’s comments come a month after the Russian military claimed they had hit a meeting Baghdadi was attending near Raqqa, Syria and that he had possibly died in the strike.

Defense Secretary James Mattis today said he continues to believe that ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is still alive, and that he will assume Baghdadi is alive until he sees confirmation that the United States has killed him.

“We know a good bit”, he added.

“I think that he’s alive, and I’ll believe otherwise when we know we’ve killed him”, Mattis told reporters.

He said he has “seen nothing that would lead me to believe” that Baghdadi “has been removed from the battlefield”.

“Until I see his body, I am going to assume he is alive”, Mattis said.

The US, of course, has claimed to have killed Baghdadi several times.

From the Iraqi city of Mosul in July 2014, Baghdadi declared an Islamic “caliphate” over territory held by IS fighters in Iraq and Syria.

He is believed to have been born in Iraq, where he was detained by US-led coalition forces in 2004 but released after being viewed as not a high-level threat.