Where can Abu Bakr al Baghdadi possibly be?
In the first week of February, Iraqi prime minister Haider al-Abadi said that the elusive Abu bakr Al Baghdadi is in hiding and is being closely monitored.
He said Baghdadi has very few aides left and that his communication with the jihadi group is limited.
Since then there has been a flood of speculation as to where he may be hiding, but no solid lead. By early March, US and Iraqi officials held the firm view that Baghdadi has slipped away from Mosul and is probably hiding out in the desert.
Despite all the tech and human intelligence seeking to crack down on him, he has proved to be a slippery evader so far, moving around constantly, probably with a very small group of escorts — perhaps prefering to stay among civilian sympathisers in known desert villages rather than his band of fighters.
As of now, he is not using any mode of communication that can be tracked. As such Baghdadi has not even released any new speech since early November 2016.
For the first time since US-backed Iraqi troops started their push for Mosul about five months ago, there have been increasing, if unconfirmed reports that local IS fighters are steadily deserting the group, leaving a handful of dedicated foreign fighters to bear the brunt of the Iraqi army's onslaught.
This makes sense because local IS fighters will find it easier to melt away among the population.
However, there are reports that suggest foreign fighters are the ones fleeing.
 |
| The Anbar desert in the direction of al Qa’im to the Jordanian borders - IS has lost most of the towns it held in the Anbar province. Photo: AP/PTI |
Conflicting reports are the course in a theatre of intense conflict where there is no clear demarcation between friend and foe, but that still leaves us with the now $25 million question — where is Baghdadi?
Intel thinks that Ibrahim al Samarrai (that is Baghdadi's original name) is moving around the area between the Iraqi town of Baaj and to the Syrian border town of Albu Kamal.
This is a mostly desert stretch, north of the river Euphrates, where the population is exclusively of Sunni Arab tribes, who are mostly sympathetic to the cause of the Caliphate and it is easier to get supplies while making intel infiltration difficult.
He could be anywhere, but logically, if you are pursued by the US army and a well supported and very resolute Iraqi army, these could be the places:
The Anbar desert in the direction of al Qa’im to the Jordanian borders - IS has lost most of the towns it held in the Anbar province, which has been its traditional western Iraqi bastion.
However, it still has desert hideouts and continues to harass the security forces.
The desert around al Nukhayb on the Jordanian border.
The last Iraqi town before pilgrims cross into Saudi Arabia on their pilgrimage to Mecca saw heavy fighting when IS took over the town al Nukhayb in June 2013 and Iraqi forces wrested back control in August of the same year.
The desert around Nineveh toward Syria and Raqqa and desert areas west of Mosul - around Salahuddin to Matibija.
Since October 2016, US-backed Iraqi force and a diverse but popular militias have started to push IS out of the area, however pockets of resistance remain in the outskirts.
Watch: