A former commander of the Syrian army said that the country's intelligence agents have found out the hideaway of ISIL's main ringleader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

"The Syrian intelligence service has succeeded in finding the whereabouts of Abu Bakr Baghdadi, but we cannot hunt him down at present due to the unfavorable conditions," retired Brigadier General Bashar al-Zaqloul was quoted as saying by Panorama Middle East on Saturday.

"Efforts are underway to assassinate him," he added.

Zaqloul underlined that if the Syrian intelligence service finds an opportunity to kill Baghdadi, it will certainly do so since he is a terrorist and deserves death.

Earlier reports said that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had died and members of the Takfiri group in Iraq had sworn allegiance to Abu Ala Afri as his successor.

Two Iraqi news agencies, Alghad Press and Al-Youm Al-Thamen (the 8th Day) as well as sources in the Iraqi city of Mosul reported in April that Baghdadi died in an Israeli hospital in the occupied Golan Heights where he had been hospitalized for treatment after sustaining severe injuries during a joint attack of the Iraqi army and popular forces.

The sources added that al-Baghdadi has been declared by his Israeli physicians and surgeons as to be now "clinically dead".

The terrorist leader was targeted in an airstrike in Western Iraq on March 18.

Al-Youm Al-Thamen quoting intelligence sources said ISIL had earlier recorded several videos of its leader months before the March airstrike and after the first time that he escaped lethal injuries around a year ago to prove that he is alive until the group can introduce a universally accepted new leader.

The sources added that the members of the Takfiri group operating in Iraq had pledged allegiance to a new leader called Abdul Rahman al-Sheijlar, alias Abu Ala Afri, as Baghdadi's successor.

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