(AGENCY: Special Feature)
Who is Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi?
Baghdadi is thought to have been born in the central Iraqi city of Samarra in 1971. Though a weak student, whose poor eyesight disqualified him from joining the Iraqi military, he rose to command al-Qaeda’s Iraqi division and then broke away to form Islamic State (Isis).
In July 2014, shortly after Isis said it had established a caliphate in Iraq and Syria, Baghdadi delivered a sermon from a mosque in the captured Iraqi city of Mosul. Appearing unmasked for the first time, he declared himself to be the caliph: the political and religious leader of the global Muslim community.
His declaration was roundly rejected by almost all Islamic religious authorities but his caliphate became a magnet for thousands of foreign fighters and women. The group attempted not just to hold territory but to administer it like a state, establishing a brutal justice system, collecting taxes and doling out public services.
Baghdadi has been seen publicly on one other occasion, in an 18-minute video released in April this year. Since 2016 he has had a $25m bounty on his head.
He has been reported to have suffered serious injuries in airstrikes over the years and there has occasionally been speculation that he has been killed, but he continued to resurface in audio tapes and videos.
Why would his death be significant?
In March, Isis surrendered its final territorial stronghold in the Syrian city of Baghouz, a deep material blow but also a symbolic one, depriving the group of its ability to claim legitimacy as a restored Islamic caliphate.
The defeat prompted Baghdadi’s first public appearance in five years in a video that was interpreted as an attempt to fortify his leadership – in the face of dissent within the ranks – and to demonstrate that the group continued to exist even without its territory.
Baghdadi is not just an operational leader, but a symbol of Isis’s Islamic credentials: he has claimed to come from the same tribe as the prophet Muhammad, to be a descendant of the prophet’s grandson, and to fulfill the necessary ideological and religious tests rightfully to claim leadership of Muslims.
His death would be another strike against Isis’ purported legitimacy, leaving it less able to claim to be any different from other violent extremist groups.
What is the evidence that he was killed?
The US government, which reportedly carried out an operation targeting Baghdadi on Saturday night, is yet to announce anything publicly. Donald Trump is scheduled to make an announcement at 9am Washington DC time on Sunday morning.
Reports quoting anonymous American, Iranian and Iraqi officials have said US forces killed Baghdadi in an attack on Saturday night in the town of Barisha in the Syria province of Idlib. Video posted from the town shows a building that has been reduced to rubble, bodies scattered in the area and deep craters in the ground.
Turkish and Kurdish officials have both claimed to have coordinated with the US, though neither has said its fighters were actually part of the operation. Newsweek reported that the attack was carried by Delta Force, an elite US-army special-operations unit.
Trump tweeted at 9.23pm Washington DC time (3.23am in Idlib): “Something very big has just happened!”
Was he known to be in this area?
Baghdadi had been thought to have been hiding in eastern Syria along the border with his native Iraq. He is said to use extensive measures to avoid surveillance, never using mobile phones, frequently changing safe houses and avoiding travelling in convoys that might draw attention.
Few would guess that he was in Idlib because the province, which is under siege by Russian and Syrian forces, is mostly controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an Islamist militia that is opposed to Isis and has been known to hunt down and execute suspected members of the group.
Some have speculated that if Baghdadi were in Idlib, he might have arrived recently, fleeing the recent Turkish incursion in the north-east of the country, and the subsequent advances made by the Syrian and Russian armies.
- The Guardian of London