Islamic State (IS or Daesh) leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi has recovered from wounds sustained in a March 2015 air strike (which apparently was not intended for him) near Shurgat on the Tigris river, and has been moving “within a tight arc of north-western Iraq and north-eastern Syria”, The Guardian newspaper reported on 27 May. Quoting on-the-ground Kurdish, Iraqi and western intelligence sources – and prisoners including captured Uzbek IS commander Hamid Khalilov – it said his refuges include Baej (where he spent six months recuperating from “a serious wound to his lower back”), Billij, Tal Afar and Mosul – none far from the Kurdish front line in northern Iraq.