NATO is familiarized with reports that the ISIL leader may have been killed in Russia’s airstrike in Syria, NATO’s spokesperson told Sputnik Friday.

The Russian Defense Ministry said earlier in the day that the strike of attack and multirole aircraft might have killed isil leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi on the southern outskirts of Raqqa on May 28. The ministry noted that it is in the process of confirming the information through various channels.

“We have seen these reports. For any further information, I would refer you to the Russian authorities,” the NATO official said, while answering a question on the ISIL leader’s purported death.

In May, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said, following the one-day NATO summit in Brussels, that the Alliance would join the US-led coalition to defeat ISIL, which would consist of air-to-air refueling and intelligence sharing, but not deploying ground troops.

Source: Sputnik