Multiple Iraqi security officials claim that Islamic State (IS) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is likely wounded but still alive and hiding out in Syrian desert regions near the border with Iraq, like reported by kurdistan24.net.

There have been no confirmed public sightings of the elusive Baghdadi since July 2014, when he was filmed declaring himself the “caliph” of the world’s Muslims at a mosque in Mosul. There is currently a $25 million bounty on his head.

“The last information we have is he is in Al-Hajin in Syria, 18 miles from the border in Deir al-Zor province,” Director General of the Intelligence and Counter-Terrorism office at Iraq’s Ministry of Interior Abu Ali al-Basri told Fox News on Sunday.

He added that intelligence on the whereabouts of Baghdadi was being used to conduct a “multi-force raid” by security forces from Russia, Syria, and Iran.

Hisham al-Hishami, a member of Iraq’s National Reconciliation Commission, also told Fox News, “I met with people and some of Baghdadi’s assistants who been captured and they said he is able to hide because he moves without a convoy or bodyguards.”

“There are just three people with him: his son, his son-in-law, and his friend and driver.”

Another Iraqi official who spoke to the news organization, Ministry of Defense Spokesperson Brig. Gen. Yahya Rasool said, “He has been injured at least three times, twice in Iraq and once in Syria,” adding, “He has severe injuries to his legs and his health is not good.”

A “well-placed American intelligence insider” is also quoted in the report as saying that Baghdadi “is very much alive.”

Although Iraq declared a military victory over IS in late 2017, fighters from the jihadist group continue to carry out bombings, ambushes, kidnappings, and other attacks on a regular basis, often in areas near the Syrian border.

Iran and Saudi Arabia have been locked in a proxy war for almost 40 years, competing for regional supremacy from Iraq to Syria and Lebanon to Yemen, like reported by haaretz.com.

U.S. President Donald Trump has strongly backed Saudi Arabia in its efforts to counter Iran’s influence in the region. On multiple occasions, Trump has cited constraining Iran’s influence in the Middle East as cause for canceling the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which he claims allows Iran to continue to terrorize the region.

French President Emmanuel Macron offered a proposal last week at the White House to both save the Iran nuclear deal and address Trump’s issues with the deal. Under Macron’s proposal, the United States and Europe would agree to block any Iranian nuclear activity until 2025 and beyond, address Iran’s ballistic missile program and generate conditions for a political solution to contain Iran in Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon.

Saudi Arabia and Iran are locked in battle for regional control as the Sunni majority Saudis try to expand influence to match and overtake the Shi’ite majority Iranians. Saudi Arabia has vowed to pursue nuclear weapons in the event the Iranians restart their nuclear program.

Israel and the U.S. fear Iran could fall back on its regional militant allies or proxies to retaliate against alleged air strikes on Iranian targets in Syria, a strategy Iran has used with great success since its ruinous 1980s war with Iraq.

After the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, the U.S. blamed Iran for training Iraqi militants to build so-called explosively formed projectiles, which penetrated armored vehicles to maim and kill soldiers. Tehran denied doing this. Western nations and U.N. experts also say Iran has supplied the Shiite rebels now holding Yemen’s capital with weapons, from small arms to ballistic missiles, something Tehran also denies.

Lebanon

Iran’s greatest proxy achievement is Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group and political organization that pushed occupying Israeli forces out of Lebanon in 2000. Since then, Hezbollah has remained an adversary of Israel and fought one war against it in 2006. Southern Lebanon’s rolling hills bordering Israel remain Hezbollah’s stronghold.

Iran could retaliate through Hezbollah, but the group has been battered in the Syrian war. Supporting embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad has seen hundreds of its fighters killed and wounded.

Hezbollah also wants to further integrate into local Lebanese politics as the nation votes on Sunday for a new parliament for the first time in nine years. Launching a new war could endanger its political support base, including possibly among its Shi’ite constituency, which is wary of another ruinous war with Israel.

After the surprise and temporary resignation of Lebanese prime minister Saad al-Hariri in November 2017, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Jubeir said Hezbollah had been “calling the shots” in the Hariri government, which included two Hezbollah ministers and was formed last year in a political deal that made Michel Aoun, a Hezbollah ally, head of state.

Hezbollah and its allies will struggle to form a government without Hariri or his blessing, leaving Lebanon in a protracted crisis that could eventually stir Sunni-Shi’ite tensions, though there is no sign of this yet as all sides urge calm.

Announcing his resignation, Hariri cited an assassination plot against him and slammed Iran and Hezbollah for sowing strife and trying to “kidnap” Lebanon away from the Arab world. The declaration came as a surprise even to Hariri’s aides.

It is not clear what comes next: Saudi-backed efforts to weaken Hezbollah in Lebanon failed badly a decade ago, ending with a bout of Sunni-Shi’ite fighting on the streets of Beirut that only underlined Hezbollah’s military dominance.

Iraq

Iraq is unique in the Middle East as it is both a U.S. ally and an Iranian ally. In Iraq, Tehran-backed militias and Iranian commanders have often seemed as powerful as the U.S.-backed Iraqi military, most recently in an operation to retake Kirkuk from Kurdish forces.

So emboldened was Iran that top Iranian official Ali Akbar Velayati trumpeted his regional alliance’s success from Beirut early November 2017, declaring victories in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. His statement to the media after a meeting with Lebanon’s Hariri was seen as a major provocation to regional Sunni powerhouse Saudi Arabia.

Iraq votes in a May 12 election, which could complicate and delay the formation of a government, threaten gains against Islamic State and let Iran meddle further in Iraq’s politics.

About 60 percent of Iraqis are 27 or younger and many young people in urban areas say they want a secular government, underscoring the split within the Shi’ite voter base.

Syria

Since at least 2012, Iran has provided vital support for Syria’s military. Tehran says its goal is battling extremist Sunni militancy. Its critics say it seeks to cement regional power extending through Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon.

Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s elite Quds Force – an overseas arm of the IRGC – has appeared on frontlines across Syria, and coordinated with Moscow over its deployment in Syria in 2015. Iran says its forces are in Syria in an advisory role.

More than 1,000 Iranians have been killed in the war, including senior members of the Guards.

Iran-backed Shi’ite militias have come to Syria from around the region including from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, to fight on the side of government forces. They have often been led in battle by Hezbollah.

Earlier this month, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said Saudi Arabia would be prepared to send troops into Syria under the U.S.-led coalition if a decision is taken to widen it.

Asked about Saudi troops on the ground in Syria, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said: “We will sit down and talk about… how to best make sure that this is not America alone working on this, it’s the Gulf states working alongside us.”

Their manpower has helped pro-government forces hold ground in various battles, helping fill gaps in the Syrian army’s capacities.

Yemen

Yemen’s armed Iranian-aligned Houthi movement, which took out the Saudi-backed government in Yemen in March of 2015 and now controls northern Yemen, has fired over 100 missiles into Saudi Arabia, the latest salvo killing a man on Saturday in the southern Saudi province of Jizan. Those missiles have targeted the Saudi capital and key oil production facilities near Yemen – as well as Saudi oil tankers.

The United States and the Saudi-led coalition that intervened in Yemen’s civil war in 2015 accuse Iran of providing the missiles to its Houthi allies, which Tehran denies.

The war in the Arabian Peninsula’s poorest country, which pits a coalition of Sunni Arab states friendly to the West against a Shi’ite armed movement sympathetic to Iran, has unleashed one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

The Houthis control the north of Yemen, including the capital Sanaa. Saudi Arabia and its allies have been fighting on behalf of an exiled government with a foothold in the south.

The Saudi-led coalition has launched thousands of air strikes on Yemen in the past three years, some of which have hit hospitals, schools and markets, killing hundreds of civilians while bringing Riyadh little closer to military victory.

The kingdom has said hundreds of its own soldiers and civilians have been killed in Houthi mortar and short-range missile attacks across their rugged southern border.

The United Nations says 10,000 people have died in the conflict so far, and millions face potential famine and disease because of disruption to food and medical supplies.

Around 22 million civilians, or 75 percent of Yemen’s population, require humanitarian aid, according to latest U.N. data. The conflict has caused the worst cholera outbreak in modern history, with over 1 million reported cases.

US and France have deployed more troops from the American military base in Kobani to the Syria’s town of Manbij a report said, like reported by basnews.com.

According to Yeni Şafak, the convoy was made up of ten Humvees, radar and communication equipment, long-range missile launchers, and medium weapons, adding that the two countries’ warplanes were reportedly on alert to fly to the Kurdish-held town of Manbij.

Turkey and its backed Free Syrian Arm (FSA) Launched a military operation against the Kurdish forces in the Kurdish encalve of Afrin in Syria in January 20. After taking over the region in mid-March, Ankara threatened to extend the operation to Manbij.

The US has been backing the Kurdish forces in the battle against the Islamic State (IS) in Syria.

Turkey views the Kurdish forces as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’Party (PKK), and armed group which designated as ‘a terrorist organization” by the country.

There a three-decade conflict between Turkey and the PKK over political disputes.

Yemen’s army launched a large-scale military operation to liberate the area west of Yemen’s Taiz from Iran-backed Houthi militia on Wednesday, Saudi state-news channel Al-Ekhbariya reported.

The offensive on militia positions came as a counter-attack to prevent the militia from advancing, according to a statement issued on the Yemeni Ministry of Defense’s official website “September 26.”

Coalition forces inflicted heavy losses on the Houthis during the attack, as well as destroying a Houthi tank and rocket launcher.

The Daesh group launched a surprise attack near a town in eastern Syria they had lost six months ago, killing at least 25 regime forces, a monitor said according to arabnews.com.

At least 13 militants were also killed in the attack which Daesh carried out near Mayadeen on Wednesday afternoon, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said.

Mayadeen lies in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor on the western bank of the Euphrates River and is flanked by the vast Badia desert to its west and south.

A military source on Thursday however denied any attack against positions of the Syrian army along the western bank of the Euphrates.

But intermittent bombardment on army positions from its eastern bank had prompted retaliation with suitable weapons, the source said.

The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters, control most of the territory to the east of the Euphrates, where a few villages are still under IS control.

Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said Thursday morning “Daesh attempts to advance in the direction of the town of Mayadeen are ongoing” from the Badia desert.

He said it was the “largest DAesh attack since they were expelled from the town” by regime forces and their allies in October 2017.

IS swept across large parts of Syria and neighboring Iraq in 2014, declaring a cross-border “caliphate” in areas they controlled.

At its height their pseudo state covered an area the size of Italy, but Daesh has since lost most of it to a Russia-backed regime assault and a US-backed SDF offensive.

Daesh now control around five percent of Syria, according to Syria expert Fabrice Balanche.

But the militants have retained their ability to carry out deadly attacks. They hold pockets in Deir Ezzor and are present in the southern districts of the capital.

Since regaining full control of Eastern Ghouta to the northeast of Damascus from rebels last week, the regime has turned its attention to militant-held districts in the capital’s south.

More than 350,000 people have been killed since Syria’s war started in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests.

Iran’s supreme leader warned top officials that their country was facing threats of espionage and subversion from foreign foes who sought to undermine the Islamic Republic and its increasingly large sphere of influence in the Middle East, like reported by newsweek.com.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told Iranian Ministry of Intelligence officials to be ready to fight an “intelligence war” over public opinion and the integrity of the country’s ruling ideology that required both offensive and defensive strategies to win. Without naming any specific foes, Khamenei praised his spies for thwarting the plots of “the intelligence systems of the opposition” and recommended forming a united front at a time when tensions were rising with the U.S., Israel and Saudi Arabia.

“We are now placed in the middle of this great, big battlefield; one side of it being the System of the Islamic Revolution; the other side is the huge, powerful front of the enemies,” Khamenei said, according to his official website. “We have to resist during this war, against the plans of the adverse front; to overcome the enemy, we have to develop offensive strategies besides defensive ones, so that a strategical blueprint on playing field is laid out by our intelligence services.”

The Iranian Foreign Ministry came out strongly Tuesday against Israeli airstrikes that killed Iranian personnel on a Syrian air base last week, warning that “Tel Aviv will be punished for its aggressive action.” The attack was followed by a trilateral U.S., French and U.K. cruise missile strike Friday on three Syrian government research centers allegedly involved in a chemical weapons attack in rebel territory the previous weekend. Iran is a staunch ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and, along with Russia, has helped him overcome a seven-year uprising supported by the West, Turkey and Gulf Arab states.

The U.S. and Iran were both supporting efforts to battle the Islamic State militant group (ISIS), but the former saw a political future in Syria without Assad. As the Syrian leader claimed victories nationwide and the U.S.-led effort to battle ISIS faltered, however, Iran has increasingly invested in the war-torn nation. Alaeddin Boroujerdi, the head of the national security and foreign policy commission in Iran’s parliament, said Monday that he would soon visit Syria in the wake of the Western attack, which he said was “was carried out with the aim to boost the terrorists’ morale,” according to the semi-official Mehr News Agency.

Iran has also shored up its relations with neighboring Iraq, where a 2003 U.S. invasion installed a Shiite Muslim government much friendlier to Iran and spurred a Sunni Muslim insurgency that ultimately helped to form ISIS. The U.S. and Iran both supported the Iraqi military, while a U.S.-led coalition provided air support and Iran established a powerful collective of militias known as the Popular Mobilization Forces. With ISIS largely defeated, these paramilitary fighters were made official members of the country’s armed forces and they have threatened to expel the U.S. military by force.

Iranian Defense Minister Amir Hatami arrived Wednesday in Baghdad for a two-day visit he said was mainly aimed at “enhancing defense and military cooperation between Iran and Iraq,” according to The National. The visit came as Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi carefully balanced the interests of Iran, Saudi Arabia and the U.S. ahead of next month’s elections.

Lebanon was also set to hold elections next month, its first legislative vote in nine years. Iran grew influential in Lebanon after it helped to establish the Shiite Muslim Hezbollah movement that played a main role in resisting two Israeli incursions. Hezbollah, considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. and some of its allies, comprised the second-largest political party in the ruling March 8 alliance and has been deployed in heavy numbers to battle Syrian rebels and jihadis in both Syria and Lebanon, whose regular armed forces receive U.S. support.

Leading Lebanese newspaper Al-Nahar, which is closer to the opposition March 14 bloc, reported Wednesday that Qassem Soleimani, head of the elite Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ expeditionary Quds Force, visited the southern suburbs of Beirut earlier this month to meet with Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah.

President Donald Trump has attempted to roll back the diplomatic efforts of his predecessor, who established a landmark nuclear deal with Iran in 2015. International reviews have shown Iran to be in compliance with the deal and its other signatories—China, France, Germany, Russia and the U.K.—have all urged Trump not to abandon the deal as a deadline approached next month. The White House has argued, however, the deal gave Iran too much in the way of sanctions relief and did not adequately prevent it from funding U.S.-designated terrorist groups, developing ballistic missiles and ultimately pursuing nuclear weapons.

The Turkish Parliament has ratified a prime ministry motion for the State of Emergency (OHAL) to be extended for another three months, for the seventh time since 2016.

The State of Emergency declared in Turkey on July 21 in the wake of the July 15 coup attempt in 2016, has been extended for another three months.

Iraq’s air force carried out “deadly” airstrikes on so-called Islamic State positions inside neighbouring Syria, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s office said, according to rte.ie.

The airstrikes were launched “from the Iraqi side of the border”, it said in a statement and were carried out in coordination with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government.

An Iraqi military spokesman said F16 crossed into Syria to carry out the strikes

Separately, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said that Syrian rebels were preventing inspectors for the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) from reaching the town of Douma, the RIA news agency reported.

Rival terrorist groups Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL), and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) are capitalizing on the security vacuum created by deteriorating security conditions in Yemen to expand their influence, a top Pentagon official cautioned lawmakers.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has described the IRGC as a terrorist group when imposing sanctions on the organization, though the State Department has not designated it a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO).

Although the U.S.-led coalition and local forces have reduced ISIS to a remnant of its former self in Iraq and Syria, both the organization and its rival al-Qaeda are taking advantage of safe havens in Yemen to plot against Americans, Robert Karem, the assistant secretary for international security affairs at the Pentagon, revealed.

In written testimony prepared for a Senate Committee on Foreign Relations hearing on the Yemen war, the Pentagon official declared:

AQAP [al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula] continues to pose a significant threat to the American people by plotting attacks against the homeland, while [ISIS-Yemen] aims to use the ungoverned spaces of Yemen to plot, direct, instigate, supply, and recruit for attacks in the region.

To combat AQAP and [ISIS-Yemen], a small number of U.S. forces, in coordination with the internationally-recognized Government of Yemen, are supporting our regional counterterrorism partners in ongoing operations to degrade the groups’ abilities to coordinate external terrorist operations and blunt their aspirations to use Yemen as a safe haven for terror plotting.

Citing the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), Karem noted that the American military is also conducting airstrikes against al-Qaeda and ISIS.

Soon after taking office, U.S. President Donald Trump intensified America’s air campaign in Yemen, mainly targeting AQAP, considered the most dangerous branch of al-Qaeda.

U.S. officials and independent analysts have warned for years that al-Qaeda is exploiting the security vacuum and humanitarian situation in Yemen to seize territory and recruit fighters.

Echoing Karem, David Satterfield, the acting assistant secretary for near eastern affairs at the U.S. Department of State (DOS) who also testified, highlighted the threat against the United States posed by the jihadist groups and Iran in Yemen, telling lawmakers:

Defeating ISIS-Yemen and AQAP, countering Iran’s nefarious activities in the region, and reducing the suffering of the Yemeni people, all hinge on the resolution of this conflict. AQAP [al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula], ISIS-Yemen, and the IRGC are manipulating the security vacuum created by the conflict to expand their influence in Yemen.

While the international community must do all it can to mitigate humanitarian suffering, the only way to truly end the humanitarian crisis is by ending the conflict. To that end, the United States firmly believes that the only possible solution to the conflict in Yemen is a negotiated political settlement under [United Nations] auspices.

Both the State and Pentagon officials stressed that a U.N.-brokered political settlementinvolving the Saudis, the Iran-allied Houthis, and the Hadi government is the only way to end the Yemen conflict.

The U.N. has repeatedly failed in its attempts to negotiate peace in Yemen.

According to Karem, the Trump administration’s primary goals in Yemen are:

[T]o prevent terrorist attacks on U.S. interests and allies, end the civil war, avoid a regional conflict, mitigate the humanitarian crisis, help defend Saudi Arabia’s territorial integrity, and protect the free flow of commerce in the Red Sea.

A bipartisan group of Senators—including Mike Lee (R-UT), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and Chris Murphy (D-CT)—argue that the U.S. military efforts in support of Saudi Arabia in Yemen are unconstitutional.

During Tuesday’s hearing, the Trump administration witnesses defended U.S. military operations in Yemen, saying they are intended to prevent attacks against the United States and protect the “more than 80,000″ U.S. citizens who live in Saudi Arabia.

Iran-allied Houthis “have launched more than 100 ballistic missiles into Saudi Arabia, directed at … military installations, including bases where U.S. forces are present,” Karem told lawmakers.

The U.S. Constitution grants the American president the authority to declare war when there’s an “imminent” threat to the United States and American lives are at risk.

In the case of Yemen, the president does not have that authority, argue Sens. Lee, Sanders, and Murphy.

The anti-Yemen conflict Senators have introduced a resolution to reassert Congress’s sole constitutional authority to declare war, calling for “the removal of United States Armed Forces from hostilities in the Republic of Yemen that have not been authorized by Congress.”

“Our military support to the Saudi-led Coalition supports important U.S. national security and diplomatic objectives,” Satterfield told the Senate panel.

The Pentagon “strongly opposes any reduction or withdrawal of U.S. support to the Saudi-led Coalition,” Karem added.

Iraqi security forces killed a senior Islamic State (IS) leader in a military operation near the Iraqi-Syrian border, a security source was quoted as saying according to iraqinews.com.

Speaking to AlSumaria News, the source identified the slain IS leader as “Abu Huzaifa al-Iraqi, who was responsible for carrying arms and explosives to his militant group.”

“Al-Iraqi was hiding inside a tunnel near the Iraqi-Syrian border when the troops stormed his hideout,” the source pointed out, adding that the military operation was launched upon accurate intelligence reports.

Security forces launched the military operation Tuesday to track down IS militants on the Iraqi-Syrian border.

The Islamic State group appeared on the international scene in 2014 when it seized large swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria, declaring the establishment of an Islamic “caliphate” from Mosul city.

Later on, the group has become notorious for its brutality, including mass killings, abductions and beheadings, prompting the U.S. to lead an international coalition to destroy it.

Although Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi announced in December full liberation of Iraqi lands from IS members, isolated cells believed to be linked to the militant group remain active in some parts of the country.

In recent weeks, suspected Islamic State insurgents have carried out several attacks targeting security forces in the areas north-west of Kirkuk.