Story highlights Any movement by ISIS leader Abu Bakr al Bagdadi would help the US locate him

US military officials have said that recapturing Mosul would provide more intelligence

(CNN) After months of no signs of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, a US official told CNN on Thursday, "in the last few weeks we've been aware of some of Baghdadi's movements."

Unverified social media reports circulated in recent weeks that Baghdadi might have been injured or killed, but several US officials have said those reports are not accurate , and this latest information would indicate Baghdadi is still alive.

The official had access to some of the most recent US government reporting on ISIS, but because of the extreme sensitivity of the information, that official declined to offer more details. That includes whether intelligence indicates if he is in Syria or Iraq, or to what extent he is hiding. One longstanding theory by US officials is that Baghdadi has remained in Raqqa, Syria.

The report of Baghdadi's movements was not a "real time" report and was an indication of where the leader had recently been, prior to the US receiving the report.

An image grab taken from a propaganda video released on July 5, 2014 by Al-Furqan Media allegedly shows the leader of the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, aka Caliph Ibrahim, adressing Muslim worshippers at a mosque in the militant-held northern Iraqi city of Mosul.

Nonetheless, under standard intelligence procedures, it now gives the US military and intelligence community the opportunity to go back and look at all reporting in the time and location he might have been at. They will try to glean additional leads and see if more information can be developed.

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