Source: Hindustan Times

The top boss of the Islamic State — who on Thursday denied the terror group was on the brink of losing control in the besieged northern Iraqi city of Mosul — has himself fled, Britain’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Boris Johnson said on Friday.The Foreign Secretary told the House of Commons that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s call for militants not to retreat when faced with Iraqi forces was “cruelly ironic” because intelligence suggested he had fled the city, the Daily Mail reported.In an audio recording released on Thursday, al-Baghdadi said he was confident of victory in the de-facto capital Mosul and urged followers to continue fighting.But Johnson, while responding to queries in the House of Commons, said: “It is a cruel irony that some of the intelligence we have, you may know, suggests that the gentleman in question has actually vacated the scene himself and is nonetheless using internet media to encourage people to take part in violence.”He pledged that the IS would be repelled from the war-torn Iraqi city which has been controlled by it since June 2014, and told MPs: “The house can be sure that Daesh (IS) will be driven from Mosul, but this is the toughest task that Iraq’s security forces have yet encountered.”

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