BRUSSELS (Sputnik) — The Russian Defense Ministry said earlier in the day that the strike of attack and multirole aircraft might have killed Daesh leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi on the southern outskirts of Raqqa on May 28. The ministry noted that it is in the process of confirming the information through various channels.
"We have seen these reports. For any further information, I would refer you to the Russian authorities," the NATO official said, while answering a question on the IS [Daesh] leader's purported death.
In May, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said, following the one-day NATO summit in Brussels, that the Alliance would join the US-led coalition to defeat Daesh, which would consist of air-to-air refueling and intelligence sharing, but not deploying ground troops.
