The top Kurdish counter-terrorism official said on Monday he was 99 per cent sure that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was alive and located south of the Syrian city of Raqqa, after speculation that he had been killed.

Lahur Talabany also told Reuters that after defeat Islamic State would wage an insurgency and resemble al Qaeda on "steroids".

The future leaders of Islamic State were expected to be intelligence officers who served under former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, the men credited with devising the group's strategy.