ISIS chief Baghdadi ‘seen in public’ after 18 months

Fresh footage of ISIS supremo Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has surfaced, apparently showing the reclusive terrorist leader making a rare public appearance and talking to children at a mosque in the Iraqi city of Fallujah.

The images, broadcast on a local Iraqi television channel, have not been verified but appear to show the extremist addressing a small crowd of boys, The Times reported.

A banner behind him announces an ISIS-sponsored Quran memorising competition, with prizes from Baghdadi to be awarded to the winner.

Baghdadi, one of the world’s most wanted men, rarely appears in public. The last time he is known to have made a public appearance was in July 2014 when he led Friday prayers at the Great Mosque in Mosul less than two months after his troops stormed into the city.

Analysts at the Terrorism Research and Analysis Consortium were quoted as saying that one of the other men in the footage is Baghdadi’s “body double” — a logical security measure given that the US has put a $10 million bounty on his head.

A former prisoner of a US detention facility in Iraq, Baghdadi had studied to postgraduate level at the Islamic University in Baghdad and is thought to have been living a quiet life before the coalition invasion in 2003.