Officials from Iraq and the US are skeptical over claims by the Russian Defense Ministry on Friday that its forces may have killed ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in an air strike last month.

An Iraqi official said that Baghdadi was believed to be in another part of Syria at that time. 

Meanwhile, the Pentagon said they had no information to corroborate Russia's report. 

US-backed Iraqi forces have been fighting to retake the city of Mosul from ISIL since October 2016. The UN said on Friday that the group may be holding more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians as human shields in Mosul's Old City.