ISIS Leader Seriously Wounded in Airstrike, Report Says

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of the Islamic State, has sustained serious injuries in a March 18 airstrike in western Iraq, the Guardian newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Citing several sources, the report says that although al-Baghdadi's wounds were no longer life-threatening, his condition is preventing him from carrying out his role as the organization's leader.

The Guardian also said that "Baghdadi’s wounding led to urgent meetings of Isis leaders, who initially believed he would die and made plans to name a new leader."

The March strike took place in the al-Baaj a district of Nineveh, near the border with Syria, two separate officials told the newspaper.

Baghdadi was reportedly traveling with other ISIS leaders in a three-car convoy that was targeted by the U.S.-lead coalition forces, and a number were killed. But it seems the coalition did not know Baghdadi was in one of the cars. The coalition has been specifically targeting ISIS leadership as part of its campaign against the organization.

Baghdadi was reportedly seriously injured before, in October 2014, in heavy coalition attacks on ISIS' capital city of Raqqa in Syria, and later was said to have fled to Mosul in Iraq. News reports in November said he may have been killed, but a week later ISIS released an audio tape they said was of Baghdadi.

It is believed that on December 14, 2014, Baghdadi missed being attacked as the convoy he was riding in was hit and one of his close aides was killed, but his car was not attacked. There have been other reports from Syria in January that he was wounded in an airstrike, but even before the coalition started its air campaign against ISIS Baghdadi was rarely seen in public.