The infamous Islamic State leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi is allegedly hiding in Libya, former Iraqi minister Baqr Jaber Al-Zubeidi told the Baghdad Post news website this week.

Axar.az reports that the Iraqi political said that the Islamic State has shifted its attention to North Africa, where they are hoping to carve out a new caliphate in countries like Libya, Egypt, and Tunisia.

Baghdadi has been rumored to be hiding in several regions now, including Syria’s Badiya Al-Sham, Iraq’s Rutbah District, and most recently central Libya.

Some rumors claim that the terrorist leader is actually dead; however, ISIS has never corroborated these reports.

The Arabic-language al-Ma’aloumeh news website quoted an intelligence source in Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization Units) command center in the al-Anbar province as saying that according to the latest intel, al-Baghdadi is hiding in a tunnel in the al-Husayniyat region in the northern parts of the Rutbah District in western al-Anbar.

He added that the security forces are mulling operations to take control of the tunnel, and said that given the heavy deployment of security forces in Rutbah region near the border with Syria and closure of all roads, Baghdadi and the militants under his command cannot escape.