“The defense ministry has already commented on Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. We want to get more information. It was announced in a very solemn and triumphant manner, but our military are still looking into more information. They cannot yet confirm many of the things that the US said. So, I will leave this situation be,” Lavrov said.

“However, elimination of terrorists, if it did take place after all (since Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was reported dead many times), is probably a positive step, considering his instrumental role in forming the Islamic State and trying to establish a caliphate,” he added.

The Russian foreign minister reminded that IS emerged “after an illegal intervention [by the US and its allies] in Iraq, after the Iraqi state was destroyed and extremists from prisons were released”.

“That’s why to a certain extent, Americans eliminated someone for whose emergence they themselves were responsible, if this really did take place,” Lavrov noted.

US President Donald Trump announced on October 27 that al-Baghdadi was killed in a special forces operation in the Syrian province of Idlib. The Russian defense ministry announced that it does not have enough credible information to confirm al-Baghdadi’s death.

The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) does not have any DNA test data that could confirm the elimination of al-Baghdadi, SVR head Sergey Naryshkin stated on Friday.

“We have not got any genetic material that would allow to say with 100 percent confidence [that al-Baghdadi was killed],” Naryshkin told reporters to remark that Al-baghdadi death not confirmed.