US cannot confirm Daesh leader Baghdadi’s death

WASHINGTON Defense Secretary James Mattis said Friday the U.S. can’t confirm claims Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Daesh's proclaimed "caliph", is dead. "We assume he's alive until it's proven otherwise. And right now, I can't prove it otherwise," Mattis told reporters. "If we knew, we would tell you. Right now, I can't confirm or deny it." The U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights was the latest group to claim Baghdadi is dead when it said earlier this week sources within Syria's Deir ez-Zour city had confirmed it. Last month, Russia claimed it had likely killed Baghdadi in an airstrike on a southern suburb of Daesh's Syrian capital, Raqqah. The U.S. has placed a $25 million bounty on Baghdadi's head.