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BAGHDAD. – Islamic State (IS) group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has fled the besieged Iraqi city of Mosul and is believed to have delegated tactical control of the battle to local commanders, a US defence official said Wednesday. The official said the elusive leader, who last appeared in public in Mosul in July 2014 to proclaim a “caliphate”, fled the former IS group bastion some time before Iraqi security forces surrounded the city during an offensive to retake it.

“He was in Mosul at some point before the offensive. We know he’s been there,” the official told reporters.

“He left before we isolated Mosul and Tal Afar,” a town to the west of the city, the official added.

Baghdadi is not believed to be exercising any kind of tactical influence on how the Mosul fight will play out, the official said.

“He probably gave broad strategic guidance and has left it to battlefield commanders.” Iraqi forces recapture Mosul museum looted by IS group

The hunt for Baghdadi is being led by various groups including US special operations forces, while the anti-IS group coalition focuses on killing battlefield commanders.

Rumours have abounded about the Iraqi jihadist leader’s health and movements, but his whereabouts are unclear. His militant group has lost most of the land it once held in Iraq and Syria but hopes to cling to scraps of a self-declared caliphate, the official said.

Since summer 2014, when the jihadists were at their peak just ahead of the US-led war on the group, they have lost 65 percent of the land they’d seized across much of northern Syria and large parts of Iraq.

The IS group now is looking beyond the seemingly inevitable loss of their strongholds of Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria.

“I don’t think they have given up on the vision of their caliphate yet,” the official said, noting that the jihadists hope to hold on to parts of eastern Syria and western Iraq. – France24/AFP.