By Walid Shoebat (Shoebat Exclusive)

Iraqi state television has reported that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State in Iraq and Levant (ISIL), has been injured during military operations targeting the group.

“Iraq’s Ministry of Interior reports that the Falcon Intelligence Cell served a blow to a group of terrorists including Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, resulting in his injury,” Al Iraqiya reported on Sunday.

The report gave no information on the whereabout of the attacks or the gravity of the injury.

The injury of Al-Baghdadi was confirmed earlier today with a message on a Twitter account attributed to the ISIL’s spokesperson Abu Mohammed al-Adnani wished Baghdadi a speedy recovery.

There are however conflicting stories. Kurdistan News last month had announced the killing of Al-Baghdadi and even included a photo:

The Kurdish sources said that he was already killed during the clashes in the area Kobanî last month which ignited the fuse of the battles between Kurdish fighters and ISIS that killed more than 400 fighters from both sides. Media reports have picked up a Kurdish news ‘Voice of Kurdistan’ and said that the units protect the Kurdish people managed to kill the leader of the state of Iraq and the Levant Islamic “Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi,” on October 8th.

Baghdadi has made what would be his first public appearance at a mosque in the center of Iraq’s second city, Mosul, on July 5th and since then there were no public appearance of Al-Baghdadi seen anywhere.

Was Al-Baghdadi dead this whole time? No one so far confirmed, but Abu Muhammad Al-Adnani’s tweet, who is known as the spokesman for ISIS  confirmed Sunday that Baghdadi was hit and “injured” by a US airstrike, writing on Twitter:

“Perhaps you suspected that the Caliphate ended with martyrdom of the Caliph. I assure the [Islamic] nation that the Emir Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is well thank god, and I wish him a speedy recovery.”

Could the speak of martyrdom of Al-Baghdadi’s be perhaps paving the way to keep the morale high knowing that his leader is dead? Only time will tell. After all, has anyone seen any public appearance of Al-Baghdadi since July? No. Even Al-Qaeda used to issue videos of OBL when such rumors came out of possible deaths, it keeps the morale up, yet ISIS has been keeping their Robin-Hood-Caliph secretly hidden.