Commander said International Coalition killed 1200 militants

Iraq’s military information cell announced the dumping of Iraqi aviation millions of publications on the Hawija district, the only remaining strongholds controlled by ISIS in Iraq, while commander of the international coalition, General Stephen Townsend, revealed that the coalition managed to kill about 1200 elements of "duds" by international bombing during the operations of Tal Afar.

Elusive ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is probably still alive and likely hiding in the Middle Euphrates River Valley, stretching approximately from the city of Deir el-Zour in eastern Syria to the town of Rawa in western Iraq, US Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend said Thursday.

“We’re looking for him every day. I don’t think he’s dead,” Townsend, commander of the counter-ISIS coalition in Iraq and Syria, told reporters at the Pentagon in a conference call from his headquarters in Baghdad.

Townsend admitted he didn’t “have a clue” where Baghdad is precisely, but believes he may have fled with many other ISIS militants into the Middle Euphrates region, after coalition and local force assaults on the terrorist organization’s bastions of Mosul, Raqqa and Tal Afar.

“The last stand of ISIS will be in the Middle Euphrates River Valley,” Townsend said. “When we find him, I think we’ll just try to kill him first. It’s probably not worth all the trouble to try and capture him.” With a $25 million US bounty on his head, Iraq-born Baghdadi has successfully avoided an intense effort to seek him out for six years or more.

Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a longtime conflict monitor, said in mid-June that it had heard from senior ISIS leaders in Syria’s Deir el-Zour province that Baghdadi was dead. Russia’s army said in mid-June that it was seeking to verify whether it had killed him in a May air strike in Syria.

“I’ve seen no convincing evidence, intelligence, or open-source or other rumor or otherwise that he’s dead…. There are also some indicators in intelligence channels that he’s still alive,” said Townsend.

On the other hand, A civilian was killed, seven others, including army personnel, were wounded in two blasts that north and southwest of Baghdad, security sources said. “A bomb, placed near stores in al-Zaafaraniya region, leaving a civilian killed and four others wounded,” a source told Alghad Press on Thursday.

Another blast targeted an army patrol in northern Baghdad. Speaking to Baghdad Today, a source said, “a bomb targeted an army patrol in al-Tarmiyah region in north of Baghdad, leaving three personnel wounded.” Violence in the country has surged further with the emergence of Islamic State Sunni extremist militants who proclaimed an “Islamic Caliphate” in Iraq and Syria in 2014.

Security members, paramilitary groups and civilians are targeted by bombings and armed attacks since the Iraqi government launched a wide-scale campaign to retake IS-occupied areas in 2016. More than 500 Iraqis were killed and injured during July due to violence and armed conflicts, according to a monthly count by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI). Baghdad was the second most affected province with 38 killed and 85 injured.

“A total of 241 Iraqi civilians were killed and another 277 injured in acts of terrorism, violence and armed conflict in Iraq in July,” the UNAMI report said, noting that the security personnel casualties were excluded from the figures.