ERBIL, Kurdistan Region —ISIS leader Abu Bakir al-Baghdadi sleeps in a suicide vest, according to the spokesman for the coalition’s Combined Joint Task Force in Iraq, who said the group is under intense aerial and ground bombardment in its Mosul stronghold. “Typically what we’ve seen with persons of this group is they don’t wish to be captured,” Col. John Dorrian said in a coalition press conference at the Ministry of Peshmerga in Erbil on Tuesday. “So what we’ve heard through intelligence and open sources, and I don’t know if we can verify these, is that he sleeps in a suicide vest, so we’ll see how that plays out. (Capturing al-Baghdadi) alive is nothing I’d be able to say with any surety.” In December, the US State Department upped its reward from $10 million to $25 million for information leading to the location, arrest or conviction of the ISIS leader who goes by the alias of al-Baghdadi. “Al-Baghdadi is in hiding because he knows he’ll be killed when he’s found,” said Dorrian, standing alongside Brig. General Halgurd Hikmat of the Peshmerga ministry; and Brig. General Yehia Rasoul of the Iraqi army. “We’ve dropped more than 9,000 weapons on Daesh (in Mosul operations),” Dorrian revealed. “This has destroyed 350 of their fighting positions, more than 130 of their vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIEDs), more than 130 of their tunnels. All of these contribute to helping Iraqi security forces defeat Daesh.” Dorrian credited the use of terrain-denial airstrikes with decreasing the ability of ISIS to use VBIEDs in Mosul. Additionally, he said ISIS was spreading propaganda as it continued to lose territory in the Nineveh Province. “The people of Mosul have seen that Daesh has told lies,” Dorrian said. “Prior to the Mosul operations, Daesh told the civilians that the Iraqi Security Forces would kill them; instead, they’ve protected them.” Rudaw cameras captured video footage of ISIS drones flying over Iraqi troops in Mosul last week which Dorrian said were used to bomb civilians and army alike. “(ISIS) told people that we were bombing them, but in fact, Daesh was doing it with UAVs,” Dorian added. “The people of Mosul see through Daesh’s lies.” Brig. Gen. Rasoul of the Iraqi army at the press conference said that ISIS was on its last legs on the eastern side of Mosul. “Our heroic counterterrorism forces have reached Tigris River at some points in the east of Mosul,” Rasoul said. “ISIS is being defeated and is drawing its last breaths. We are going to liberate the rest of east side of Mosul in a near future.”
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