“The ISIS group, which recently claimed a strike on Sri Lanka, has been creating fear and terror around the world,” he said in a video message.“This successful operation makes the world a safer place.” Baghdadi has been the subject of an international manhunt for years, and has been incorrectly reported dead or injured multiple times.

Baghdadi’s death is seen as another defeat for ISIS, which has faced increasing pressure in recent years. The terror group lost its last stronghold in Syria in March.In announcing the death of Baghdadi, President Donald Trump declared he was the “world’s number one terrorist leader.” After he took over the leadership in 2010 of what was then-called the Islamic State of Iraq, Baghdadi rebuilt the group into a force that just a few years later took control of vast swathes of Syria and Iraq.

The group also claimed responsibility for a series of suicide bombings in churches and hotels in Sri Lanka that killed more than 250 people in April, though police in Sri Lanka say they are yet to establish a direct link to the terrorist group.In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, the elusive chief of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS) group had appeared for the first time in five years in a propaganda video released by the armed group.He had reportedly discussed the bombings in Sri Lanka in an audio recording after the video ends.