An air strike has seriously wounded Islamic State (ISIL) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, sources in Iraq with links to the fundamentalist militia have told The Guardian.

A convoy of cars was hit in an air strike on March 18, al-Baghdadi was not the target, The Guardian reports.

A western diplomat and an Iraqi advisor confirmed the air strike took place in the al-Baaj district of Nineveh in western Iraq, near the Syrian border.

• Explainer: Who is the head of the Islamic State?
• Why we should call Islamic State the name it hates
• Jihadists declare caliphate

The attack on a three-car convoy was said to have killed three men. it was aimed at killing local ISIL leaders and they didn’t know at the time al-Baghdadi was in one of the cars.

“Yes, he was wounded in al-Baaj near the village of Umm al-Rous on 18 March with a group that was with him,” an advisor who has connections with both IS and the Iraqi government, Hisham al-Hashimi said.

The BBC reported that Brigadier General Saad Maan, Iraq’s spokesman said al-Baghdadi was injured in a coalition airstrike in March, appearing to confirm the report.

Sky News reported an interview with the Iraqi source, al-Hashimi, where he appeared on camera.

“His main organs are working, the shrapnel has left him unable to move and he’s still receiving treatment,” al-Hashimi said.

“It’s possible he’ll recover soon,” he said adding that his vital organs were not affected but he might need rehabilitation.

He said a source at al-Salam hospital in Mosul gave him the information.

Al-Hashimi downplayed the importance of al-Baghdadi’s injuries, saying the religious leader was important to the organisation’s media goals but his deputy was more important.

A Pentagon spokesman said they had “nothing to confirm this report” that al-Baghdadi was injured.

“He chose this area because he knew from the war that the Americans did not have much cover there,” a source privy to some of Baghdadi’s movements told The Guardian.

“From 2003 (the US military) barely had a presence there. It was the one part of Iraq that they hadn’t mapped out.”

Since his injury, decision making for the fundamentalist militia has been moved on to a council of leaders, sources reported in The Guardian said.

Islamic State seized about a quarter of Iraq last June including two of its largest cities, Mosul, which it has made its stronghold.

But through a joint effort of air strikes and ground offensives, an estimated 27,000 square kilometres of captured land has been recaptured from Islamic State – including the northern city of Tikrit.