He is the world's most wanted man. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the fugitive leader of the Islamic State (IS) group and its self-styled “caliph”, has a $25m (£19m) US government bounty on his head.
For more than three years he has been dodging capture, and ever mindful of his security, until now he has only ever appeared once in-vision, when he delivered his sermon from Mosul in 2014 declaring a “caliphate”, ruled by him.
Earlier this week, Baghdadi resurfaced in an 18-minute online video, rallying his supporters but, not surprisingly, giving no clues as to his current whereabouts.
So where is he, how is he being searched for, and why cannot the US and its allies, with all their sophisticated technology, locate him?
Reports say that on 3 November 2016, Baghdadi made a mistake that nearly cost him his life.
The battle for Iraq's second city of Mosul was getting underway and US-led coalition forces were pressing in on IS fighters.
From somewhere just outside the city, Baghdadi made a 45-second radio call exhorting his followers to keep fighting. The message was intercepted by electronic eavesdropping aircraft operated by the coalition, a voice match was made and there was a frantic scramble to react.
But by then the IS…
