‘ISIS chief Baghdadi is in Libya’

The leader of the ISIS group, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has fled to Libya and is based in the group’s stronghold of Sirte, according to a report on Wednesday by the semi-official Iranian news agency Fars.

Baghdadi travelled to Libya amid fears the United States-led coalition and Iraqi intelligence services were closing the net around him, Fars said.

He was seriously injured in an airstrike in western Anbar province in October. He was first taken to the group’s self-styled capital of Raqqa in northern Syria, where doctors saved his life, but a lack of specialised medical equipment meant he needed to be moved, the report said.

He was then taken to Turkey for treatment and from there travelled to Libya, according to Fars. “While everyone is looking for him in Iraq and Syria, no one expects him to be in Sirte,” Fars quoted a Libyan source as saying.

The Muslim Brotherhood aligned Libya Dawn militia on Saturday reported Baghdadi’s presence in Sirte on its Facebook page.

Al-Baghdadi was planning to lead an attack on the northwest coastal city of Misurata and the country’s oil fields and was also plotting fresh attacks in Tunisia, according to Libya Dawn.