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IS terror group leader’s killing unlikely to turn the tide, Chechnya’s Kadyrov says

Chechen leader also noted that the Al-Qaeda terror group was still active despite the killing of its leader Osama bin Laden in 2011

GROZNY, October 27. /TASS/. The killing of leader of the Islamic State (terror group, outlawed in Russia) Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is unlikely to bring any crucial changes if the world continues dividing terrorists into "good and bad guys," Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov said on Sunday.

"Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is again killed?" Kadyrov wrote on his Telegram channel, commenting on media reports that the US had conducted an operation to kill "the high-value target."

The Chechen leader recalled the words of Taras Bulba, a legendary Cossack hero from a novel by Nikolai Gogol, which he said to his son Andriy: "I fathered you and I shall kill you."

Kadyrov noted that the Al-Qaeda terror group (outlawed in Russia) was still active despite the killing of its leader Osama bin Laden in 2011. "Al-Baghdadi’s death will hardly change anything if terrorists are divided into good and bad guys. It’s important to fully clean Syria of the IS group," he stressed.

Earlier Newsweek magazine reported citing its sources that the US forces killed leader of the Islamic State (terror group, outlawed in Russia) Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in a special operation in Idlib on Saturday. US President Donald Trump had approved the mission nearly a week before it took place, the report said. After the operation had concluded, the US leader tweeted: "Something very big has just happened!" The president is expected to make a "major statement" Sunday at 9:00 a.m., the White House announced later.

Reports on al-Baghdadi’s killing have emerged in various mass media outlets in the past years, but were not officially confirmed.