With conflicting media reports coming out of Iraq, the Pentagon on Monday said it could not corroborate reports that Islamic State commander Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had been killed or wounded in a recent airstrike by U.S.-led coalition forces. Meanwhile, Iraqi state television was reporting that an aide to Baghdadi had been killed in a strike near the city of Fallujah. State television identified the man as Abu Huthaifa al-Yamani. It did not say when the strike took place or give further details. Iraqi security officials have not confirmed the death, and it was not immediately possible to establish whether Yamani was an aide to Baghdadi. Contradictory reports have emerged about the fate of Baghdadi himself after airstrikes against the group in at least two Iraq locations on Friday. Spokesman Colonel Steve Warren on Monday told reporters the Pentagon could not confirm Baghdadi's status. Earlier, Major Curtis Kellogg, spokesman at the U.S. military's Central Command, said it had no information to corroborate reports that Baghdadi was wounded in any strike on the city of Mosul in the north and al-Qaim to the west. The strikes could have killed or wounded some of his aides, who Iraqi officials said were in gatherings targeted by the strikes. Falluja is an Islamic State stronghold to the west of Baghdad in the Sunni Muslim heartland Anbar Province. The United States and its allies launched a barrage of attacks against Islamic State targets over the weekend, conducting 23 airstrikes in Syria and 18 in Iraq against the militant group since Friday, the U.S. Central Command said. In Iraq, seven strikes hit near Baiji and others in or near Falluja, Mosul, al-Qaim, Haditha, Ramadi and Rutba. In a statement, the U.S. Central Command said the strikes in Syria included 13 aimed near the besieged border town of Kobani and 10 near Dayr Az Zawr. The Islamic State group, which swept through northern Iraq in June virtually unopposed by the Iraqi army, has declared a caliphate in the parts of Iraq and Syria it controls.
