The Islamic State (ISIS) has reportedly burnt the cleric who indirectly confirmed the Islamic caliphate leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's death.
Abu Qutaiba, an IS cleric, admitted to the ISIS chief's death as he broke into tears while mentioning his name during Friday's sermon last week in Tal Afar city in the west of Mosul.
Shortly after Qutaiba's announcement, ISIS reportedly executed the cleric for confirming the news of death.
The jihadist militants burnt the cleric in public on Sunday, a local source told Alsumaria News.
Baghdadi had declared his Islamic caliphate ISIS in Nuri Mosque in central Mosul three years ago.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard had apparently verified Baghdadi's death, and the report is supposedly confirmed "through multiple channels".
According to earlier reports, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Oleg Syromolotov told Sputnik that ISIS chief is 'highly likely' to have gotten killed in Russian fighter jets airstrike in Syria's Raqqa city.
Russian lawmaker Alexei Pushkov had also said the probability of ISIS leader's death after Russian airstrikes are about 100 percent.
"If he were alive, then as a demonstration of power and as a mean of increasing war morale, a refutation would have been already announced," Pushkov argued in a statement made to Sputnik.
The ISIS leader's death has been reported on multiple occasions over the recent years, with no possible confirmation of his demise.
