PROFILE OF EVIL
How ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi rose from a shy Iraqi boy to the world’s most wanted man
The elusive ISIS leader is nicknamed The Ghost and has a $25 million bounty on his head
ABU Bakr al-Baghdadi has risen from a shy, polite and talented schoolboy to being a mass killer with a $25 million bounty on his head.
The 47-year-old has been seen for the first time in five years in a new video released by ISIS to prove that he is still alive.
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The terror chief was born Ibrahim Awad Ibrahim al-Badri the town of Samarra north of Baghdad.
He came from a family of Sunni preachers but growing up was known more for his ability on the football pitch rather than any religious devotion.
The young Baghdadi turned out for his local mosque team and was described “the Messi of our team” in reference to the Argentinian Barcelona star.
According to the those who knew him in those days spoke of a shy, unimpressive and bespectacled figure who gave little hint he would later adopt fanatical Islamist views.
After leaving school he studied at an Islamic university, eventually earning a PhD in sharia law before reportedly becoming a mosque cleric in a rundown area of Baghdad.
Other accounts dispute whether he was in fact a preacher with some saying he merely lived in a room in the mosque.
'MESSI OF OUR TEAM'
After graduating he married and after about a year his wife gave birth to a son.
Al-Baghdadi has four sons from one wife and one son with another wife.
One of his five boys, Hudhayfah al-Badri, was killed during an attack by the jihadist against Syrian and Russian troops at a power station in July this year.
Al-Baghdadi became known for his conservative Salafist views which included shouting at men and women he saw dancing in the same room.
He also became influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood,
Some say he was already a militant when the US and its allies invaded Iraq.
But either way he soon went from being an unknown preacher into a hardened Islamist fighting the Americans and fellow Iraqis.
Baghdadi founded the Jamaat Jaysh Ahl al-Sunnah wa-l-Jamaah - Army of the People of the Sunna and Communal Solidarity), a militant Sunni
to fight U.S. troops.
Al-Bagdadi’s activities had come to the attention of the Americans and in 2005 he was detained at the US-run Camp Bucca.
After his release he continued his violent activity and became the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq after Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi was killed in a US airstrike.
He he didn’t, however, swear allegiance to the broader al-Qaeda network, by that time led by Ayman al-Zawahiri.
The group were renowned for their brutality, included beheading victims with rusty knives, strapping suicide bombs on the mentally disabled and hiding explosives in corpses to kill funeral-goers.
AL-QAEDA LEADER
When civil war broke out in Syria in 2011 he began exploring alliances with jihadis there and in 2013 announced the merger of the ISI and the al-Nursa front.
The new group became known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
Baghdadi soon acquired a reputation as a highly organised and ruthless battlefield tactician which made him more attractive than Zawahiri, an Islamic theologian.
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ISIS began their terrifying rise in 2014 and soon attracted thousands young foreign jihadists.
They stunned the world with the capture of Mosul, Iraq’s second city in June and eventually controlled an area the size of Britain with 8 million people.
From a pulpit of the Grand Mosque in the city al-Baghdadi announced the founding an Islamic caliphate and awarded himself the title Caliph Ibrahim.
The video of the speech he made in which he wore all black, including a black turban, and had a full black beard was the last time he has been seen before the recent video.
Baghdadi made a few recordings during his time at the helm of the Islamic State, calling for attacks on the West and urging his supporters to keep fighting.
But he was rarely seen and acquired the nicknamed The Ghost and the Invisible Sheikh - reportedly even wearing a mask while speaking to his followers.
He has also been accused of repeatedly raping girls and women he kept as "sex slaves", including a pre-teen Yazidi girl and US aid worker Kayla Mueller, who was subsequently killed.
'THE GHOST'
As the US backed coalition began to turn the tide against ISIS and its once vast swathe of territory shrunk, little was heard from him.
The US Department of Justice raised the reward for his capture of the elusive ISIS leader from $10 million to $25 million.
He was said to have been seriously wounded in an air strike in 2015 and he has dodged several other attempts to kill him.
The ISIS leader was also reportedly killed in an airstrike in Raqqa in 2o17.
In October last year, it was claimed he had been killed in a Russian airstrike on a Syrian village.
Al-Baghdadi remains a top target for the Central Intelligence Agency and US military’s elite Joint Special Operations Command, which includes Navy’s SEAL Team 6.
In February, 2019, it was reported that Al-Baghdadi was hiding out in deserts in eastern Syria after successfully fleeing an attempted coup from militants to seize control of ISIS.
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The clash reportedly occurred in a village near Hajin, in the Euphrates River valley, where between 1,000 and 1,500 militants are believed to be living in a 20 sq mile area, near Syria’s border with Iraq.
Abu Muhammad al-Husseini al-Hashimi, believed to be a distant cousin, is reportedly believed to be behind moves to oust him.
Hashimi claims Baghdadi is a ruthless ruler who destroyed the legacy of ISIS through oppressive and excessively violent behaviour.
In the latest video Al-Baghdadi appears to have aged considerably and reports say he is hiding with a small number of companions.
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