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ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is still in Nineveh as the extremist group is effectively trapped inside the province, according to a senior leader of al-Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization Units).

PMUs are running a joint intelligence task force with the Joint Operations Command to track Baghdadi’s movements, Jawad al-Tleibawi was quoted as saying on Saturday. “Initial information with the intelligence bodies tell that ….Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi remains in Nineveh….as security forces impose control over the eastern side of Mosul, while the western side is totally isolated from Syrian territories,” he stated.

Baghdadi has commanded the ISIS since the extremist group’s emergence in Iraq and Syria in 2014 to proclaim the establishment of a so-called “Islamic Caliphate”. In 2007, the New York Times reported the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abdullah Rashid al-Baghdadi, was a fictional character invented by the US military. The article is among the first to refer to the now infamous 'Islamic State'.

The group has taken over large areas of Iraq and Syria since then, but is currently losing most of its influence in both countries as government and international forces continue to battle the group. A local source from the Nineveh governorate announced in October that the Iraqi flag is flapping above the great mosque from which the leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, stood, announcing his “presumed Caliphate” in June 2014.

Since October 2016, Iraqi government forces, backed by popular militias (PMU) have been leading a major security campaign to drive the group out of Nineveh’s city of Mosul, the group’s last urban stronghold in Iraq. Iraqi forces have said they liberated 90% of the eastern part of the city since then, but ISIS remains strong in the west, near the borders with Syria.

The offensive on Mosul is expected to become the biggest battle fought in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 and it could require a massive humanitarian relief operation.