The Guardian: A failed “coup” against Baghdadi… The battle lasted two days with his bodyguards
The Guardian newspaper reported on Monday details of the failed coup attempt on the leader of the Islamic State Organization Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi.
The newspaper published a report on Juma Hamdi Hamdan, 53, a Syrian citizen who managed to escape from the last pocket of the organization in the east of the Euphrates, saying that violent clashes between the “revolutions coup” and guards Baghdadi broke mid-September in the village of Al keshmah near the town of Bagouz, which today The last bastion of the “Da’esh” in the east of the Euphrates, which is now being invaded by the “Syria Democratic Forces” with the support of the Washington-led international coalition.
“The fighting was very fierce and they had tunnels connecting the houses.
Most of them were Tunisians.
Many people were killed”, he said.
“I saw him with my eyes, he was in Keshmah and the Kharijis (the coupists) tried to detain him.
Hamdan said that Al Baghdadi, on the backdrop of these events, moved to the Baguoz and fled to desert areas in early January, and confirmed this to the newspaper a senior regional official.
Hamdan pointed out that the leader of “Da’esh” and his guards spent about six months in the region before the escape, saying that during this period Baghdadi tried to adhere to humility in his behavior, was using an old red car, not accompanied by guards in the street, but everyone knew about their presence.
“Everyone knew where Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi lived and avoided going with his bodyguards to the center of the town, as he was using a red Opel”.
He went on to say, “The Islamic state organization has been issued an award for those who bring the master plan of the coup, who is a former foreign fighter”.
The author of the report said, that the town witnessed heavy fighting over the weekend and that “the Syria Democratic Forces announced yesterday the control of 41 sites belonging to the organization”.
The Guardian reported in a report published last Thursday by intelligence official’s details of the failed attempt to overthrow Al Baghdadi, noting that the incident took place on January 10 in a village near the hybrid area in the Euphrates River valley in eastern Syria, where it is believed that Al Baghdadi Hiding there.
The paper said in the report that unidentified intelligence officials said that “a planned movement against Al Baghdadi led to an exchange of fire between foreign fighters and guards of the fugitive terrorist leader, who led him away to neighboring deserts”.
The Islamic State Organization presented an award to those who kill “Abu Mu’az Al Jazairi”, believed to be a veteran foreign fighter, one of the 500 fighters in the organization, estimated to be still in the region, while not directly charged with the Algerian organization, at the head of one of its important members is an unusual movement, and intelligence officials believe that “Algerian” was the master planner.
An intelligence official said they had learned of the coup attempt in time.
“There was a collision and two deaths.
They were among the foreign fighters, among the most trusted”.
Adnan Afrini, a senior military official in the Kurdish majority in SDF, said that militants from Algeria and Morocco also took part in the fighting within the organization along with the “coupists”, stressing that the confrontations were fierce.
According to the Guardian, the extremist from Algeria called Abu Mu’adh Al Jazairi, who is considered a “veteran” within the organization, was the mastermind of the failed “coup attempt” and announced the organization “calling” a prize for those who would deliver him alive or dead.
Iraqi officials and their counterparts in Britain and the United States are confident that Al Baghdadi recently spent time in the last stronghold of the so-called “caliphate”, where the most powerful members of the group reunited after nearly two years of field losses in preparation for what is seen as the last battle.
“But there has not been much – so far – indicating a serious threat from within the leadership or life of Al Baghdadi”, the newspaper said.
“Those who remained near the extremist leader are themselves veteran fighters driven by their ideology, and their allegiance were tested during the years of loss.
However, preacher fighters – including former militants – continued to flee daily from the besieged areas during the past three weeks, with the surrender of several thousand members and their families to Kurdish-led forces near Deir Al Zour”.
With the demise of the organization’s control areas and the elimination of its leaders, the focus was on the whereabouts of Al Baghdadi, a diabetic with high blood pressure, who has suffered permanent injury in an air strike four years ago.
He is now a fugitive from the armies of four countries and tens of thousands of fighters since his only public appearance to appoint himself as a “successor” at the Nouri Mosque in Mosul in 2014.