They say jihadis emptied hospital and demanded blood donors for wounded

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi said to be among several hurt or killed ISIS leaders

Wounded? Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader the so-called Islamic State, is said to be among those targeted

Speculation is mounting that the leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was indeed killed in a US led airstrike on Friday.

On Sunday senior Iraqi officials confirmed that the leader of the Islamic State group was at the very least wounded in the coalition attack and said that the terror chief's right hand man, Auf Abdulrahman Elefery, had perished during the aerial assault.

Elefery, who is known by his code name Abu Suja, died when planes hit an ISIS convoy near Mosul in northern Iraq.

However, conflicting reports surround the fate of Baghdadi.

ISIS members have taken to social media to claim that he was not traveling in the same convoy that claimed Elefery's life, while other sources have stated that the feared warlord was killed or seriously injured in the airstrike.

An Iraqi security official, Hisham al-Hashimi, told the UK's Daily Telegraph that Elefery was 'Baghdadi's very close companion' and was killed in the attack which destroyed up to 10 vehicles.

'He and Baghdadi were rarely separate. It's for this reason that it could be possible that Baghdadi was with him at the time of the attack,' he said to the British newspaper.

Hashimi revealed that Elefery's death was confirmed to him by relatives.

General Nicholas Houghton, the Chief of the Defence Staff of the British Armed Forces told the Daily Telegraph: 'I can't absolutely confirm that Baghdadi has been killed. Probably it will take some days to have absolute confirmation.'

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Attacks: Two strikes were reported, one at al-Qaim, near the Syria-Iraq border, and a second in the ISIS stronghold of Mosul

An Interior Ministry intelligence official told The Associated Press that al-Baghdadi was hit during a meeting Saturday with militants in the town of Qaim in Iraq's western Anbar province.

The official, citing informants within the militant group, said the strikes wounded al-Baghdadi. A senior Iraqi military official also said he learned in operational meetings that al-Baghdadi had been wounded.

Neither knew the extent of al-Baghdadi's apparent injuries. Both spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential material. State television later also reported that al-Baghdadi had been wounded.

However, Pentagon officials said they had no immediate information on such a strike or al-Baghdadi being wounded.

Al-Baghdadi, an ambitious Iraqi militant believed to be in his early 40s, has a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head.

Since taking the reins of the group in 2010, he has transformed it from a local branch of al-Qaida into an independent transnational military force, positioning himself as perhaps the pre-eminent figure in the global jihadi community.

A U.S.-led coalition has been launching airstrikes on Islamic State militants and facilities in Iraq and Syria for months as part of an effort to give Iraqi forces the time and space to mount a more effective offensive.

The Islamic State had gained ground across northern and western Iraq in a lightning advance in June and July, causing several of Iraq's army and police divisions to fall into disarray.

Prisoner: al-Baghdadi, shown before his rise to power, was held as a prisoner by the U.S. during the occupation of Iraq

On Friday, U.S. President Barack Obama authorized the deployment of up to 1,500 more American troops to bolster Iraqi forces, including into Anbar province, where fighting with Islamic State militants has been fierce.

The plan could boost the total number of American troops in Iraq to 3,100. There now are about 1,400 U.S. troops in Iraq, out of the 1,600 previously authorized.

Two witnesses confirmed that bombs had fallen on the town of al-Qaim, next to the Syrian border.

Local government sources described how an aircraft had swooped over a meeting of senior ISIS figures and dropped its payload, killing more than a dozen people.

Another witness said that eight people had died when a bomb struck a market.

A local hospital was said to be overwhelmed with the volume of patients from the raid - including al-Baghdadi.

Local ISIS officials were reportedly roaming the streets with loudspeakers ordering residents to donate blood to help the wounded.

Striking Baghdadi would be the most significant blow yet in the campaign against ISIS, who have been defiant in the face of sustained air attacks from the U.S. Air Force and allies.

A provincial leader from Anbar in western Iraq, as well as his deputy, are said to be among those killed instantly by the bombs.

Al-Qaim and the neighbouring Syrian town of Albukamal are on a strategic supply route linking territory held by Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Air strikes: The reports say that U.S. warplanes dropped bombs on the town of al-Qaim in Iraq. Pictured is an earlier strike against ISIS in Kobani, on the Turkey-Syria border

The so-called Caliph, who declared himself leader of all the world's Muslims in a televised speech, was formerly a prisoner of the U.S. during their occupation of Iraq.

The shady figure was eventually released, and rose through the ranks of the jihadist groups which eventually united to form ISIS, or the Islamic State.

Iraqi security officials could not immediately comment on the reported raid. The U.S. military did not confirm or deny the strike.

Separately, the coalition of air forces, which includes Great Britain's RAF and Canadian fighter planes, struck a convoy just outside Mosul, ISIS's stronghold city in northern Iraq.

U.S. officials would not confirm or deny whether Baghdadi, the group's overall leader, had been targeted, though one said that the coalition's airstrikes had not been targeting any particular meeting.

IS-affiliated Twitter accounts rushed to deny the reports, with one tweeting: 'I can report to the Muslims that Amir Al-Momineen Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi Hafid hu'allah is alive and well.'

The hardline Sunni Islamic State's drive to form a caliphate in the two countries has helped return sectarian violence in Iraq to the dark days of 2006-2007, the peak of its civil war.

It has also created a cross-border sanctuary for Arab militants, as well as foreign fighters whose passports could allow them to evade detection in Western airports.

The U.S. strikes coincide with violence elsewhere in Iraq, after jihadist-style attacks hit the Iraqi capital of Baghdad.

A view of the Syrian town of Kobani (Ayn al-Arab) where clashes between ISIL militants and Kurdish armed groups continue, on November 07, 2014

On Saturday night a car bomb killed eight people in Baghdad's mostly Shi'ite Sadr City, police and hospital sources said.

The blasts bring to 28 the day's toll from bombs in the Iraqi capital and the western city of Ramadi.

Two bombs exploded in separate attacks in Baghdad's mainly Shi'ite Amil district, said a police source.

'A driver parked his car and went to a cigarette stall, then he disappeared. Then his car blew up, killing passers-by,' the source said, describing one of the two attacks in Amil.

In the mostly Shi'ite al-Amin area of Baghdad, another car bomb killed eight people, medical sources said.

The attack by a suicide bomber on a checkpoint in Ramadi in Anbar killed five soldiers. 'Before the explosion, the checkpoint was targeted with several mortar rounds. Then the suicide humvee bomber attacked it,' said a police official.

There was no claim of responsibility for the bombings, but they resembled operations carried out by Islamic militants.

In the town of Baquba, 40 miles northeast of Baghdad, a gunman killed a Shi'ite militiaman, and a car bomb targeting a police officer killed his 10-year-old son, security sources said.

Western and Iraqi officials say U.S.-led air strikes are not enough to defeat the al Qaeda offshoot and Iraq must improve the performance of its security forces to eliminate the threat from the group, which wants to redraw the map of the Middle East.

President Barack Obama has approved sending up to 1,500 more troops to Iraq, roughly doubling the number of U.S. forces on the ground, to advise and retrain Iraqis in their battle against Islamic State.

The Iraqi prime minister's media office said the additional U.S. trainers were welcome but the move, five months after Islamic State seized much of northern Iraq, was belated, state television reported.

SOCCER-LOVING PHD STUDENT WHO BECAME WORLD'S WORST TERRORIST WITH $10 MILLION BOUNTY ON HIS HEAD: WHO IS ABU BAKR AL-BAGHDADI? Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi is the relatively discreet leader of the Islamic State extremist group. He used to play for his mosque's soccer team and has a PhD in Islamic history. But after spending four years in a US camp during the Iraq occupation, he emerged as one of the most brutal terrorists in the world. The government placed a $10 million bounty on his head in 2011 when intelligence identified his movements as critically dangerous. This warrant was publicized once more following the beheadings of US nationals James Foley and Steven Sotloff as well as Britons David Haines and Alan Henning. He maintained a low profile for months as ISIS, the group's original name, rose to global infamy and Al Qaeda denounced them as 'too extreme'. But he finally revealed himself to the public with a speech, filmed and posted on YouTube, in the first week of July this year. Born Awwad Ibrahim al-Badri al-Samarri in 1971 near Samarra, Iraq, he came from a Sufi family - a tolerant form of Islam. In the 1990s, he completed a PhD in Baghdad and played soccer with friends. But he fell out with mosque leaders and fled to Anbar province where he joined Sunni groups protesting the US occupation. American forces detained Baghdadi at Camp Bucca in 2005 shortly after the Iraq invasion. He was released when the camp closed in 2009. He was thought to be 'bad but not the worst' sources told The Daily Beast. But he then joined the Islamic States of Iraq and Syria, and rose up the ranks rapidly. After allegedly killing the leader, Abu Omar Baghdadi, he took hold of the terror group. Advertisement

The United States spent $25billion on the Iraqi military during the U.S. occupation that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003 and triggered an insurgency that included al Qaeda.

Washington wants Iraq's Shi'ite-led government to revive an alliance with Sunni tribesmen in Anbar province which helped U.S. Marines defeat al Qaeda.

Such an alliance would face a more formidable enemy in Islamic State, which has more firepower and funding.

Police Colonel Shaaban Barazan al-Ubaidi, commander of a rapid reaction force in Anbar, said security forces retook eight villages. His account could not be immediately confirmed.

Why evil ISIS boss al-Baghdadi may be FAKING his own death in a Homeland-style plot to dupe the West

In the Channel 4 series, the Taliban mastermind battling CIA station chief Carrie Mathieson (pictured) is very much alive, pulling the strings from his perfect hiding place and spinning a web of lies to dupe the Americans

The ‘kill mission’ against Islamic State boss Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi carries chilling echoes of TV show Homeland where the chief terror suspect Haissam Haqqani is supposedly killed in a drone attack.

In the Channel 4 series, the Taliban mastermind battling CIA station chief Carrie Mathieson is very much alive, pulling the insurgent strings from his perfect hiding place and spinning a web of lies to dupe the Americans.

I wonder if al-Baghdadi is doing the same. It would certainly suit him to play dead for a while - plus, he's risen from beyond the grave before.

Even now, the Pentagon is seeking to confirm whether coalition air strikes have critically injured or even managed to kill the elusive ‘caliph’ – and we are none the wiser.

Could it be telling that the news of his death apparently leaked out from ISIS itself?

So far, U.S. officials are working on inference.

Late on Friday night, American warplanes hit a ten-car convoy southwest of Mosul, which functions as ISIS’s capital in northern Iraq.

Among the 20 people thought to have been killed was Auf Abdulrahman Elefery, who is known by his code name Abu Sajar, a key aide to Baghdadi.

If Abu Sajar was there, it is likely that Baghdadi was too, though he may also be among the casualties who were rushed to Mosul hospitals, where there were urgent appeals over loudspeakers for blood donations.

According to Iraqi sources, parallel attacks on Qaim in Anbar province killed one of the terror group's top strategists in a predominantly Sunni region where ISIS has made huge military advances in recent weeks as the world’s attention was distracted by its relentless siege of Kobane in northern Syria.

Normally so effusive on social media, ISIS are being strangely coy about the losses it may have sustained this weekend, though it has started arresting former members of the Iraqi army lest they are providing the US with actionable intelligence.

ISIS is probably scouring their deep substitute bench for replacements for anyone killed, including Baghdadi himself.

Baghdadi has made a lifelong virtue of anonymity, especially since his Al Qaeda mentor, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in a U.S. bombing raid in 2006.

Except for his brief appearance in Mosul in July to proclaim himself Caliph (an office that fuses political and religious leadership), Baghdadi has kept a low profile, so that the fate of ISIS does not appear to hinge on his personal survival.

It also offers the perfect cover should Baghdadi wish to disappear for a while, Homeland-style.

For Baghdadi has been careful to organize ISIS in such a way that power is highly decentralised, with a clear division between those responsible for administering territories the terror group controls and those who direct its military operations.

ISIS has been careful to include many Sunni tribal figures in administration, precisely to pre-empt any U.S. attempt to trigger a tribal uprising against them, a strategy the Americans pursued against Al Qaeda in Iraq (ISIS’s forerunner) in 2007-08 with some success.

Targeted: Baghdadi was reportedly wounded on Friday night when American warplanes hit a ten-car ISIS convoy like this one southwest of Mosul, which functions as ISIS's capital in northern Iraq (file picture)

ISIS’s military command includes at least two Sunni Muslim Iraqi army generals on the run since the Saddam era, who clearly have considerable tactical ability.

ISIS has used lightning advances and exemplary terror as well as suicide bombers to destroy enemy command and control centres.

They also use the destruction of bridges and controlled flooding to shape battlefields to their choosing, and the deployment of roadside bombs and embedded tanks to inhibit countermoves by their Iraqi or Kurdish opponents.

So far, the U.S. response has been to remove the unpopular Shia prime minister of Iraq, to reduce the alienation of the country’s Sunni and limited efforts to restore the fighting morale of the Iraqi national army, which, poorly led, effectively fled from this ferocious opponent.

The only effective obstacles to ISIS taking over the country have been Shia militias in Baghdad and further south, and the Kurdish peshmerga in the north.

Although the U.S. has added a further 1,500 military advisers, bringing their total strength to over 3000, they have to be careful since the same Shia militias are restive about a renewed U.S. ‘occupation’ of Iraq.

American airstrikes have been criticised as a drizzle when what is required resembles a cloud burst in a thunder storm.

So far there have been an average of five strikes a day, compared with 50 in Libya in 2011, 85 in Afghanistan, and 800 a day in Iraq itself during the 2003 US-led invasion.

So far, only 800 of the 3, 200 sorties over Iraq and Syria have actually involved dropping bombs or firing missiles.

Until these raids at the weekend, there has been an absence of actionable intelligence from the ground, while Pentagon lawyers are being ultra cautious about avoiding any civilian casualties.

The long distance planes have to fly from bases in Qatar or the UAE, or from carriers in the Persian Gulf, also makes it hard for them to loiter looking for targets of opportunity.