Islamic State says leader’s son killed in Syria

BEIRUT — The Islamic State jihadist group says the son of its leader has been killed fighting Syrian government forces.

The announcement of the death of the young son of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi appeared on the group’s social media accounts late Tuesday. It includes a picture of a young boy carrying a rifle and identified him as Huthaifa al-Badri.

The statement, dated this month, says he was an elite fighter, known as an “inghimasi,” who was killed while fighting Syrian and Russia troops at a power station in the central Homs province. It does not specify when he was killed.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitoring group, says the most recent IS operations in the area were in the first two weeks of June.

Al-Baghdadi has been reported killed or wounded on a number of occasions but is widely believed to still be alive. Little is known about al-Baghdadi’s family, but a woman and a child who were said to be his wife and daughter were detained in Lebanon in 2014.

— AP