Russia's Defence Ministry said on Friday it was checking information that a Russian air strike near the Syrian city of Raqqa may have killed Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in late May.

The air strike was launched after the Russian forces in
Syria received intelligence that a meeting of Islamic State
leaders was being planned, the ministry said in a statement
posted on its Facebook page.

"On May 28, after drones were used to confirm the
information on the place and time of the meeting of IS leaders, between 00:35 and 00:45, Russian air forces launched a strike on the command point where the leaders were located," the statement said.

"According to the information which is now being checked via
various channels, also present at the meeting was Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who was eliminated as a result of the strike," the ministry said.

The US-led coalition fighting Islamic State said it could
not confirm the Russian report that Baghdadi may have been
killed.

The strike is believed to have killed several other senior
leaders of the group, as well as around 30 field commanders and up to 300 of their personal guards, the Russian defence ministry statement said.

The IS leaders had gathered at the command centre, in a
southern suburb of Raqqa, to discuss possible routes for the
militants' retreat from the city, the statement said.

The United States was informed in advance about the place
and time of the strike, the Russian military said.

Islamic State fighters are close to defeat in the twin
capitals of the group's territory, Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in
Syria.

Russian forces support the Syrian government which is
fighting against Islamic State mainly from the west, while a
US-led coalition supports Iraqi government forces fighting
against Islamic State from the east.

The last public video footage of Baghdadi shows him dressed
in black clerical robes declaring his caliphate from the pulpit
of Mosul's medieval Grand al-Nuri mosque back in 2014.

Born Ibrahim al-Samarrai, Baghdadi is a 46-year-old Iraqi
who broke away from al Qaeda in 2013, two years after the
capture and killing of the group's leader Osama bin Laden.

Rami Abdulrahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for
Human Rights, cast doubt on the report Baghdadi may have been killed. He said that according to his information, Baghdadi was located in another part of Syria at the end of May.

“The information is that as of the end of last month
Baghdadi was in Deir al-Zor, in the area between Deir al-Zor and Iraq, in Syrian territory,” he said by phone.

Questioning what Baghdadi would have been doing in that
location, he said: “Is it reasonable that Baghdadi would put
himself between a rock and a hard place of the (US-led)
coalition and Russia?”

--Reuters