Baghdadi Leader of barbarity & bloodshed
IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency
Tehran, Aug 10, IRNA -- Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the head of the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)—an Al-Qaeda offshoot—has emerged as one of the world's most bloodthirsty terrorists in recent months due to the groups crimes in Syria and Iraq.
Monday edition of the English language newspaper Iran Daily writes that the terrorist group has seized an alarming number of cities across Syria and Iraq.
The armed group announced the establishment of a caliphate straddling the two countries on June 29, urging other groups to pledge allegiance.
In an audio recording released, the group declared its chief, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the caliph and leader for Muslims everywhere.
The legality of all emirates, groups, states and organizations becomes null by the expansion of the caliphs authority and the arrival of its troops to their areas, said the groups spokesman, Abu Mohamed al-Adnani. Listen to your caliph and obey him. Support your state, which grows every day.
The group announced that it was now called the Islamic State. According to the statement, the new caliphate stretches from Iraqs Diyala province to Syrias Aleppo.
The group has shot and beheaded countless Syrians and Iraqis along the way.
Since the announcement of the Islamic State, several theories have been doing the rounds about its leader. And recent speculations around the ISIL leader state that Baghdadi was born to Jewish parents in Israel.
According to a report in Veterans Today, Baghdadi is a Jew and his real name is Elliot Shimon. It goes on to claim that the man is a Mossad-trained operative paid to pose as the ISIL leader.
Breeding ground
Reports last month said evidence leaked by Edward Snowden, the US National Security Agency whistleblower, found that the Takfiri leader was trained by Mossad, along with intelligence agencies of the US and the UK.
The report noted that Snowden said the intelligence services of the United States, Britain and the Zionist regime have worked together to create a terrorist organization that is able to attract all extremists of the world to one place, using a strategy called "the hornets nest".
While the theories around Baghdadi keep on growing, the ISIL leader still remains a mysterious figure to most people.
Based on information provided by ISIL members, the real name of Baghdadi is Abu Dua, Ibrahim bin Awad bin Ibrahim al-Badri al-Radawi al-Husseini al-Samarrai.
According to Afghan sources, Baghdadi (a nom de guerre) spent several years in Afghanistan working with the Arab militants and the Taliban. Baghdadi apparently went to Afghanistan in the late 1990s with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian who founded Al-Qaeda in Iraq after the US-led invasion in 2003. It was Zarqawis group that would later evolve into the Islamic State.
The group of Zarqawi, whose real name was Ahmad Fadil al-Khalayilah, has carried out several bloody attacks against Shias and their holy sites in Iraq.
Zarqawi was a petty criminal known for his cruelty. Born in 1966, he spent several years in Jordanian prisons, where he was radicalized in the 1980s, becoming an extremist.
Zarqawi went back to Afghanistan, where he and Baghdadi reportedly began to work together. Afghan sources recall that they were close partners. When Zarqawi established an Arab group called Jund al-Sham (Army of Syria) and received considerable assistance from former Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the group operated in Kabul and Herat.
Baghdadi had close relations with the Taliban during his years in Afghanistan, as did Zarqawi. The two Arabs shared the Talibans sectarian hatred of Shias.
It is likely that Baghdadi, like the rest of the Talibans allies, fled Afghanistan after the American intervention following 9/11. Zarqawi went to Iraq and began building the infrastructure that would become Al-Qaeda in Iraq and, after his death in 2006, the Islamic State of Iraq.
The new information helps put Baghdadi in better perspective. His association with Zarqawi from at least 1999 establishes him as an early player in the Takfiri extremist movement in Iraq and its war against Shias.
In 2005, Baghdadi was arrested by US forces and placed in an American-run detention facility in Iraq, Camp Bucca. The US military did not consider him particularly dangerous and let him go when the camp closed in 2009.
As he left, he reportedly told guards, "I'll see you guys in New York."
Baghdadis release has raised questions about the true motive behind the move.
He emerged as the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, one of the groups that later became ISIL, in 2010, and rose to prominence during the attempted merger with another terrorist group, al-Nusra Front in Syria.
It also helps explain his strained relationship with Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Ladens successor in Al-Qaeda. Zawahiri was always skeptical of Zarqawi and his associates, whom he regarded as too sectarian and bloodthirsty. Zawahiri counseled bin Laden not to trust Zarqawi.
Zawahiri expelled Baghdadi from Al-Qaeda earlier this year over a turf battle. Zawahiri had wanted al-Nusra Front to be Al-Qaedas franchise in Syria, while Baghdadi had wanted what was then the ISIL to be in charge. ISIL had actually created al-Nusra Front and Baghdadi wanted a bigger role.
Egyptian Islamic Jihad Leader Nabil Naeem said in an interview that Zawahiri asked Abu Bakr Baghdadi to pledge allegiance to him (as the Emir) but Abu Bakr Baghdadi, since he's basically a US agent, told him: We are the people of cause, the cause of liberating Iraq, Syria and so. You're the one who should pledge allegiance to us, Ayman (Zawahiri) refused so there was a dispute and a fight between them.
It is known that the US released him from prison and he spent 20 to 30 million US dollars to establish the ISIL group and the first ISIS camps were held in Jordan, he added.
These camps were supervised by the (US) Marines, and the arming of ISIL is all American. And how do they arrange their expenses? I was in charge of a camp for 120 men, we were spending thousands of thousands (of dollars); food, drinks, weapons, munitions, training.
Let me tell you something. The wounded from ISIL during (terrorist) operations are being treated here in Lebanon? No, neither in Syria, nor in Saudi Arabia nor in Egypt, where do they go? They go to Israel. Now, as we speak, there are 1,500 of ISIL and al-Nusra (Front) in Tel Aviv hospitals.
Naeem also said Baghdadi bought hundreds of vehicles and gained millions of dollars through aids he received from Qatar.
ISIL in Syria and Iraq
The Arab Spring began on 18 December 2010 in Tunisia and shook many Arab nations.
The populist uprisings across the Arab world paved the way for certain Arab and Western states to intervene in Syria and support terrorist groups fighting against the government of President Bashar al-Assad.
Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the former intelligence chief of Saudi Arabia, who have good relations with fighters in Afghanistan has played a key role in connecting the militants groups with Washington.
This alliance helped the emergence of terrorist groups such as ISIL, al-Nusra Front, Ahrar al-Sham and Kataeb al-Farouq.
In Afghanistan, the militants targeted Soviet Union, but now they are targeting Shias and other religious groups in Syria and Iraq.
ISIL grew significantly as an organization owing to its participation in the Syrian war and the strength of its notorious leader.
In the ongoing Syrian conflict, the Al-Qaeda offshoot has a large presence in the Syrian provinces of Raqqa, Idlib and Aleppo.
ISIL terrorists recently seized the 93th Brigade military base, one of the last remaining government bases, in the northern province of Raqqa.
Fresh brutalities
ISIL is known for its harsh interpretation of Wahhabism and its brutal violence, which is directed at several religions, Shia Islam and Christianity in particular.
The crisis in Iraq escalated in June after the ISIL extremists took control of Mosul in a lightning advance, which was followed by the fall of Tikrit, located 140 kilometers (87 miles) northwest of the capital, Baghdad.
The ISIL terrorists have brutally murdered hundreds of Iraqi Christians and held their women and children hostage since they took over the Iraqi city of Mosul.
The terrorists have confiscated their properties and forced thousands of the Iraqi Christians to flee the land they have inhabited for thousands of years.
The terrorist group also recently captured the towns of Sinjar and Wana, near the city of Mosul. It mercilessly massacred the men and forced thousands to leave their homes behind and take refuge in the mountains.
Children are among the tens of thousands stuck for days in the Shingal mountains where more than 60 children and the elderly have died of starvation and thirst.
"We are being slaughtered," Vian Dakhil, an MP, told the Iraqi Parliament referring to the families who fled to the outskirts of Shingal, which fell to ISIL militants on Aug. 9.
"There is now a campaign of genocide being waged against the Yazidis," Dakhil said.
She added that, "Thirty-thousand families are besieged in the Shingal mountains without water and food. They are dying. Seventy babies have died."
"Our women are taken as slaves and sold in the slave market," Dakhil said, referring to the ISIL practice of taking women as war booty.
Yazidi leaders continue to seek international help for the tens of thousands displaced by the ongoing fighting and are at imminent risk of death.
The Yazidis are a Kurdish-speaking ethno-religious community that practices an ancient syncretic religion linked to Zoroastrianism and early Mesopotamian religions.
As ISIL gains momentum in the region, criticisms at Baghdadi are rising due to his living style. Reports say ISIL terrorists are critical of their leaders lavish living.
A serious question that arises here is why a group that calls itself Islamic does not take a stance against the Israeli regime in reaction to its crimes in the besieged Gaza Strip.
ISIL's justification is that it has not received any order from God to stand against Jews, but to fight against Shias!
Hundreds of Iranian Assyrians gathered in front of the United Nations office in the Iranian capital Tehran on Thursday, chanting slogans in support of the Christian community in the two Arab countries and calling for practical measures against the Takfiri terrorists.
The demonstrators also condemned the international body for turning a blind eye to the crimes committed by the ISIL terrorists and demanded justice and global attention to the plight of Assyrians in Iraq.
The international community is "pretending to be blind, deaf and dumb … [It is] ignoring all the brutalities committed against our people," Yonathan Betkolia, an Iranian MP and secretary-general of the International Union of Assyrians, said.
The Peshmerga Kurdish fighters have launched a fierce counteroffensive against the ISIL terrorists in northern Iraq. They say their main aim is to cut off the supply and retreat routes the ISIL terrorists have established along the Iraqi-Syrian border.
This is while the United States launched a second round of airstrikes against ISIL militants in Iraq's Kurdistan region.
The US military continued to attack ISIL targets near Arbil conducting two additional airstrikes to help defend the city where US personnel are assisting the government of Iraq," Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby said on Friday.
The first round of the US air attacks was conducted earlier on Friday. An aircraft dropped 500-pound laser-guided bombs on a "mobile artillery piece" near Arbil.
The White House said it will provide more military support to the Iraqi government once a new "inclusive" government is formed in the country.
Baghdadi is doing Satan's work in the name of God. And ISIL has not only emerged as a deviated group bent on tarnishing the image of Islam, but also leaving behind a trail of barbarity and bloodshed never seen before in contemporary times.
If the supply lines of ISIL extremists are blocked and regional states help the Iraqi government crush these deviated brutes, no ISIL terrorist will be able to escape alive from Iraq.
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